Flight School Confidential
by Brahma Bear
Summary: "It means everything," said Kit.  "I sleep it, I dream it... I think about it once every ten seconds, at least!"
1. Chapter 1

_This story is a retelling the TaleSpin television episode authored by Martin Donoff, and it is not an entirely verbatim adaptation. Having no restrictions to limit the events of the tale to twenty-two minutes of television runtime, some liberties were taken in adding new scenes and altering existing ones to paint a bigger and more colorful picture, so to speak._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Flight School Confidential<strong>_

The lenses of Kit's goggles were dripping with beads of sweat; he swiped them from his brow and tossed them out of the open cockpit just to see anymore. He leaned forward close to the windshield, to save himself from the hot, dusty desert air in his eyes, squinting to see through splattered bug guts and cracks in the glass.

A quick glance behind his shoulder and there were two other planes that had just swooped down along the same cliff he had come; they were creeping up on his tail at an alarming rate. His plane-scratched and dented, riddled with bullet holes, and abused through endless hours of intense racing across the globe through perilous skies-had moments ago ignited with a wake of black smoke trailing from its belly.

Through the spinning propeller blade on his plane's nose, he scanned the horizon ahead, where the distant framework of a dusty city began to materialize. Two sets of massive bleachers rose above the white, barren sand dunes, and the crowd of cheering enthusiasts standing on them were quickly shaping into more than just a moving blur of dots with their shiny balloons and waving arms. And then, finally, between the bleachers were two pylons and a hoisted banner—the finish line. He was in first place.

The engine hacked and roared, ill and desperate to cling to life, and the flight stick was hot and shook as if it were attached to a firing machine gun. The crystal over the speedometer was opaque with cracks and difficult to read, but coming down on the final stretch of the race he had already abandoned his instruments somewhere between three hundred miles-per-hour and the engine temperature gauge exploding on the console.

He glanced back again; the other two planes were edging in ever closer, gunning for the stadium, and formed a single-file line behind him.

"Come on, just a little faster," he coaxed to his plane, pushing the throttle despite that it was already as far forward as it would go. "Just a little faster, a little faster..."

To his chagrin, the engine began to sputter, and the planes behind him were catching up too quickly. It was twenty seconds to the finish line. "I can't outrun 'em," he huffed. "But I can still _out-fly_ 'em!"

He banked into position squarely in front of the other two, then steadily dropped down, skimming the rolling dunes by mere inches. His plane kicked up a rooster's tail of sun-scorched sand that blasted into the trailing planes like a sandstorm.

A final look back, and the planes were wobbling off course, their engines choking and burning, and their pilots shaking their fists at him with curses of the wrath.

"Ya-_hoo_!" he shouted, the finish line zooming beneath his sight. Balloons took to the sky by the hundreds. The roar of the crowd washed away the death rattle of his own plane, and there was the announcement over the loudspeakers: 'And the winner is..._ Little Britches!_'

He blinked. "Lit-Little... Britches?"

"Li'l Britches? Can't ya hear me?"

"Huh? Oh…" As the familiar surroundings of the Sea Duck's cockpit settled in, Kit Cloudkicker snapped out of his daydream, somewhat disappointed a daydream was all it had been. In his lap was the latest issue of Air Adventures magazine.

Baloo called him again from the Sea Duck's cargo hold. "Ki-it?"

"Sorry, Baloo. What is it?"

"You seen the soda pop anywhere?"

"I think we're out."

"I thought I had an emergency supply put away back here...?"

"That's been gone for a week," said Kit.

"So what happened to it?"

"Miz Cunningham was getting ready for one of her inspections! I had to get rid of it."

"_Had _to?"

"Well, I was thirsty, too."

Clanks and clunks were heard from the rear of the plane as Baloo checked the last of his hiding spots for leftover sweets. "Aw, well. We'll be at Louie's soon enough, I guess."

To his left, Kit couldn't help but notice, with some contemp, that in pilot's stead was Baloo's "trusty" crowbar, propped up and holding the yoke straight and level. Sometimes Kit held that skinny piece of iron in a world of contempt, as he did presently, if only out of envy, because it seemed to get more flying time than he did.

Kit sat up on his knees and leaned over to look in the cargo hold. "Hey Baloo, if you're busy, can I go 'head and sit in for awhile?"

But at that moment, Baloo had come back and took his seat. "Maybe next time, kiddo. Didn't think to ask ya."

Kit regarded that remark with a bit of skepticism, considering at no time in the past had he ever jumped at an opportunity to fly the Sea Duck with less enthusiasm than Baloo had jumped at a piece of chocolate cake.

"Well, I'd be glad to, anytime, you know," said Kit.

"Sure, sure. Say, you weren't noddin' off on me out here, were ya?"

"A little," shrugged Kit, flipping through more pages of the magazine. "Check this out, though! They're making a picture in Starrywood about a big air race around the world. And look at this!" Kit reached over and showed Baloo a full-page photograph from the magazine; it was a sleek, shiny stunt-plane, with a silver luster that even as a black-and-white photo on pulp paper was easily pleasant on the eyes. "It's gonna have the new Sky Stallion model in it! Do you know how _fast _this bird can go?"

Baloo nodded. "I'll admit, that don't look too shabby!"

"I'll say. What I'd _give _to fly a plane like that." Kit gave the picture one last warm gaze before rolling the digest up and putting it in the glove compartment. "I think I'm in love."

"Heh heh, I know what _that's _like'," said Baloo. "But whadaya think a plane like that's got on us an' the Sea Duck, anyway?"

"What, like in horsepower? Altitude ceiling?"

"Naw, none of that technical stuff, kiddo. I'm talkin' about _style_, ya dig?"

Kit shook his head. "'Fraid not."

"I mean take your fancy-pants assembly-line planes like the one in yer book," said Baloo. "Any yahoo can get inside a cockpit and push a throttle, right, but so what? That ain't what flyin's all about. It's about gettin' out there, no walls to stop ya, nothin' to tie you down. And any time you just happen to feel like it, out of the blue..." Baloo adjusted his hat snugly on his crown. "_Ya do one of these_!"

Baloo suddenly took the plane into a tight barrel roll, prompting a startled yelp from Kit. Several dives, rolls, and spins later, they were both roaring with laughter and cheers.

"Hoo boy, now that's style!" Baloo exclaimed, patting the Sea Duck's dashboard.

"Yeah!"

"I'm tellin' ya, when you're behind the wheel of a plane like this, there's a whole, big sky out there and it's all yours. Simple, fun, and ain't nothin' better."

"Yeah," Kit replied, more softly, watching Baloo fly with a dreamy glaze in his eyes.

"Ready for the ol' Baloo Corkscrew?"

Kit took off his hat and held it ready in his hands. "Let 'er rip, Papa Bear!"

They were sucked into their chairs as Baloo pushed the throttle forward and sharply pulled the Sea Duck straight up, hundreds of feet into the sky. Just as the plane ran out of speed, Kit let go of his hat and watched it float in mid-air. Then the Sea Duck made a sudden about-face, nose-down, and instantly picked up great speed.

"Yee-haw!" whooped Baloo.

"Awright!" Kit shouted, gripping on to the arms of his chair. As the plane spiraled toward the sea, he watched the smooth and precise adjustments Baloo made with the yoke and throttle, and how he made it gracefully level out. It looked every much as Baloo described it: simple and fun.

"Can I try now?" he asked.

Baloo couldn't help but chuckle; the kid didn't exactly beat around the bush. "An' wind us up nose-down in the dirt? Aw, yer too _young _to fly, Kit."

"But I _can_ fly," protested Kit.

Baloo resisted shaking his head, thinking, _'Here we go again...'_ By no means was it the first time this conversation was initiated between the two, and he could only hope this latest round wouldn't last as long as some of the more epic bouts they've had on the subject.

That time, however, Kit had done his homework: "Look, just ask me _anything_ in the standard flight manual," he persisted. "Go 'head, ask me!"

"Yeah, and I'd bet you'd know. But knowin' it and _doin'_ it are two different things."

Kit wasn't about to give up _that_ easy. "But I've taxied, and I've been in at _least_ two hundred planes— and once you let me sit in your lap and steer! And...!"

"_And_ you're only twelve years old," interrupted Baloo. "Sorry, but there's no gettin' around that."

"Aw, jeepers," Kit scoffed, sinking in his seat. There was always something dreadful about hearing his age repeated by an adult, because it was rarely spoken of unless it was coupled with the phrase 'too young to.' It was like the trapdoor dropping out from under the scaffold… a quick end to many a debate about what he was allowed to do.

"Man, what a great day," remarked Baloo. He took a deep, relaxed breath and stretched his arms, appreciating the crisp, bright sky ahead and shimmering sea below, and Louie's Place peering just over the edge of the horizon. He was rather oblivious to his navigator, who was slouched over the arm of his chair with his back to the pilot's seat. "'Course any day's great when your last delivery's gone and we got the _whole weekend _to ourselves."

"If I'm not _too young _to have a weekend off," Kit muttered through his teeth.

"Hm? Say somethin'?" asked Baloo.

Kit shook his head. He didn't speak again the rest of the flight.

* * *

><p>After landing, Baloo hummed merrily to himself as he taxied the Sea Duck to a stop at the docks of Louie's Place.<p>

The big bear squeezed around the navigator's chair and stepped out on Kit's side. He grabbed a rope and began mooring the plane to the dock when he noticed Kit wasn't budging, but just staring at the distance sullenly.

"You okay in there, Mini-Muscles?"

"I'm fine," said Kit, flatly.

"Ya sure?"

"Yep."

"Yer comin' in, aren't ya?"

"No thanks, I'm good."

Baloo finished tying the Sea Duck up and gave the rope a tight, final tug, securing the knot. "Come on, I'll have Louie fix ya one of those mango shakes."

Kit didn't even look at him. "Naw, I'll wait here."

Baloo shrugged. "Suit yourself. Come on in if ya change yer mind."

Kit sighed as Baloo walked away. "Too young to do this, too young to do that," he muttered disdainfully. He leaned on the arm of his chair, gazing longingly at the console of the Sea Duck. Somehow all the levers and switches just seemed to sparkle, and he knew them all, their every place and function, arguably as well as Baloo.

Then he tipped a glance at the empty seat beside him. A sly smile crept back on his face, because for the moment, the cockpit was his own, all of it. He figured, after all, a little harmless taxiing in front of Louie's wouldn't hurt while Baloo was yukking it up in the restaurant. He leapt out of his chair and assumed the pilot's seat.

"Kit Cloudkicker, ace pilot, reporting for duty," he declared, giving a curt salute to an imaginary commander outside the window. "Start the engines!"

He flipped a series of switches across the console, and the Sea Duck's engines spooled to life.

Inside Louie's Place, the club was filled with Baloo's laughter, as he had not missed the opportunity to tell one of his favorite flying tales to a new face in the crowd, a young, broad-shouldered Thembrian pilot in Air Corps uniform.

"Ha ha! So these pirates stay right on my tail, and I know there's only one way to lose 'em...!"

"So you pull back on the stick, climb straight toward the sun, and do the ol' Baloo Corkscrew," said Louie, as if by recital.

Baloo scratched his head. "Were _you _with me?"

"Feels like I was, 'cuz," said Louie. "Heard that story forty-seven times now!"

The other pilots around them burst into hearty guffaws, knowingly.

"Heh, go 'head, laugh," said Baloo. "_I_ know I'm a great pilot."

The Thembrian took a swig from his mug and pointed out the window. "Then... how come you can't tie your plane down right?"

Baloo thought he was joking. "Sorry, never learned any _Thembrian _knots. But _my _way still manages ta get the job done."

"A _Thembrian _knot would keep your plane from going out to sea," replied the blue-furred pilot. "That _is _your plane out there, yeah?"

Though feint, the sound of the Sea Duck's engines suddenly rang in Baloo's ears. "What?"

Baloo, Louie, and the Thembrian quickly gathered at a window and looked down at the shore. Outside, the Sea Duck was crawling away from the dock, with the mooring rope untied and dragging from the plane's nose.

Baloo wiped his eyes as if he was sure what he was seeing couldn't be real. "What'n blue blazes...? Kit!"

"Vrr-oom!" Kit's feet swung excitedly over the edge of his seat; he let the plane coast ahead of the dock before turning her sharply to the left and around toward the sandy shore of the island. "Kit Cloudkicker, ace pilot, performs another death-defying dive! He gives it more throttle!"

Stunned and speechless, Baloo's heart jumped an extra beat as in the blink of an eye the plane abruptly burst forward at breakneck speed.

From inside the cockpit, Kit was effortlessly hurled into the back of the pilot's seat, having greatly underestimated the power of a "little nudge" on the throttle. Though staring out the windshield his eyes were wide as saucers, the rest of his short-lived joyride was but a sudden blur, and the next thing Kit knew the Sea Duck had plowed nose-first into the beach, kicking up water and sand and tossing against the flight yoke. He was unscathed save for having the wind knocked out of him.

Just to the left of the plane's nose sat a large bolder and a number of other big rocks, which Kit had missed barging into only by inches. When the sand began to settle and he had realized all what he had done, there was really only one thing left for him to say about it: "Oops."

Out the restaurant came running Baloo, Louie, and the Thembrian pilot. "Kit!" shouted Baloo. "Are you all right?"

The Sea Duck's cockpit door swung open and Kit jumped down onto the beach, surefooted, with the only evidence anything had happened to him at all being the apologetic expression on his face.

"Well blow my horn," Louie exclaimed, with a smile of relief. "The kid's fine!"

Kit was still catching his breath as he met them on the shore. "Gee Baloo, I'm sorry."

Baloo was more gladdened than anyone to see that Kit was uninjured, but he certainly wasn't sharing Louie's delighted countenance. "Now what were ya _doin_'?"

Kit grinned at him, sheepishly. "About... five miles an hour?"

"Well ya could've got _hurt_," the big bear snapped, his brows furrowed into a stern scowl. He leaned down with his finger shaking at the boy, "Now _this _is why twelve-year-olds aren't allowed to fly!"

"They are in _my _country," interjected Thembrian pilot, suddenly capturing everyone's attention, especially Kit's. "The flying age has just been lowered to twelve!"

Kit's jaw dropped open, and his eyes opened bright, thoughts suddenly exploding through his mind at the utterance of that magic number: twelve. "Wow, you mean they fly real planes and everything?"

"The most advanced planes in the world," the pilot replied, his chest swelling with pride. "If you want to fly, you should enlist!" With that, the pilot saluted the group, abruptly swung around on his heel, and marched toward his plane.

Baloo and Louie looked after the pilot with incredulous regard, but Kit could hardly keep his feet from dancing and singing 'I told you so!' "Hear _that_, Baloo? Twelve-year-olds _can _be pilots!"

"H'oh boy, if that ain't surprisin'," said Baloo. "Only _Thembrains _would be crazy enough to let a kid like you fly!"

"I heard _that_, man!" chuckled Louie. "Who else you gonna find to fly a bathtub?"

"Oh no, only the most _advanced _bathtubs in the world, Louie!" said Baloo. "Sign up with your rubber duckie today!"

As Baloo and Louie shared a belly-laugh, Kit's chest swelled with indignation. "Oh yeah? Well—well I'll show you!" Suddenly he stormed away toward the docks. "_I'm _going where they let a _kid like me _get his wings!"

Baloo stopped laughing as if his smile had been ripped from his very lips. And he froze... he didn't know _what _to do.

Kit hurried after the Thembrian pilot, and met with him at the docks. There was a quick exchange of words, where after the Thembrian nodded approvingly and together they boarded his plane.

"He ain't goin' where I _think _he's goin'!" Louie tugged on Baloo's sleeve, trying to wake him from what trance he seemed to be caught in. "You gonna stop that kid, Fuzzy?"

Baloo took a step forward but then stopped, took a sharp breath as if to shout something out, but the words wouldn't come. Haplessly, he watched Kit board the Thembrian's plane, and it seemed all too quickly the plane was gone, fading high into the clouds.

Baloo swallowed as if he had a rock caught in his throat. "Oh man, what just happened, Louie?"

* * *

><p>It was an awkward ride to Thembria. The pilot never introduced himself, never opened to conversation, and kept humming his national anthem over and over. There was only one seat in the cockpit, so Kit sat in the back amongst empty crates. He stayed the time daydreaming about what would be coming up next... flying!<p>

'_The most advanced planes in the world.'_ He mused over what that could mean. What he knew of Thembrian aircraft was that they were none too impressive, mostly dull and bulky designs, but what in the sky could be considered the most advanced? It gave him goose bumps.

Takeoffs, landings, rolls and loops, he could practically quote operating procedures from the flying manual verbatim, but now when he thought of them, they seemed much more than a daydream. Soon, he was finally going to get his chance in the cockpit, for real. His fingers tingled. Just wait until he went back home, proving to Baloo once and for all he could do it.

Stepping out of the plane and into a puddle of icy slush, Kit was quickly met with the biting chill of the Thembrian summer. The overcast sky was quiet and looked like smooth, solid silver, and there was heavy snow everywhere, from piles shoveled several feet high from the runway, to window sills and hangar roofs, and it blanketed several parked trucks and planes.

All the buildings looked practically identical, everything gray and square, built with thick walls of concrete, most of them several stories high and wide as prison walls. What they made up for in size they lacked in number, and they were spread sparsely around the airfield, looking more like lifeless monoliths dotting across a desolate arctic wilderness of snow dunes and jagged frozen mountains.

Roads in the area were bleakly defined; they were crudely dug out from the snow and went from structure to structure, bordered by telephone poles that held together a tangled mess of cables and bullhorns, and barbed-wire fences, which seemed to be the most popular feature in the area. One narrow path wound far downhill to a cluster of shacks and hobbles, and a countless array of skinny smokestacks rising from their chimneys.

The pilot pointed to a certain building and told Kit to start in there, and with another salute, he wished the boy luck and turned to go his own way. A big sign over the building's entrance, glossed over in frost and icicles, read 'CUSTOMS'.

Inside, there was an expansively large room, and starting at the door there were ropes and posts winding from wall to wall, forming a long line. The room was empty, save for Kit and the clerk sitting behind the counter at the far wall.

Kit ducked under all the ropes and approached the clerk. "Hello, sir, my name is..."

"Read sign," the clerk said. He was an elderly blue hog, slouched over the counter with his hands folded neatly. Behind the fogged lenses of his huge, saucer-sized glasses was a deadpan face drooping with large, folding wrinkles.

"Huh?"

"Line begins over _there, _by door," said the clerk.

"But... there's no one else here but me."

The clerk sat like a statue, stillness his reply. Kit sighed and walked all the way back to the entrance, where a 'BEGIN LINE' sign was posted, and trudged back and forth through the roped-in aisles until he finally approached the counter again.

"Halt!" the clerk barked.

Kit froze in mid-step, startled. "What?"

"Read instructions," he said, this time pointing to the sign posted next to his counter that read 'WAIT YOUR TURN.'

The clerk cleared this throat quietly and took a moment to readjust himself in his seat. "Next."

"H'oh, boy," huffed Kit, though he took his hat off respectfully as he approached the elderly hog.

"What is your business here," said the clerk. If it was a question, it didn't sound like it.

"Well, my name is Kit Cloudkicker, and..."

"Where is your paperwork."

"I, uh... paperwork?" blinked Kit. "I don't have any."

"Hm," grunted the clerk. "What is your business here."

"Well, my name is—"

"You are not a Thembrian citizen."

"No sir, I'm not."

The clerk snorted, and Kit waited a moment to see if he had anything else to ask before he was interrupted again. An awkward moment passed in silence.

"What is your business here," said the clerk.

"Well, you see, I just got here, and I was told I needed to..."

"Speak quickly!" snapped the clerk. "You are holding back the line."

Kit turned slowly, looked around the empty room, then looked back at the clerk with an eyebrow raised questioningly. "Oh-kay. Again, I'd like to sign up for the..."

"Where are you from."

"Uh, Cape Suzette."

"What is your business here."

"I'm interested in signing up for your flying—"

"Are you a spy."

"What, me? No!"

"What is your business here."

"Look, I'm trying to _tell _you my business here, I want to join—"

"How long do you plan to visit the Mommyland?" demanded the clerk. "Speak quickly!"

"I don't _know _yet!" cried Kit.

"Cape Suzette. And you are not a spy."

"No!"

"How do I know."

"For cryin' out loud! If I was, I wouldn't tell you, would I?"

Another moment passed in silence. Then:

"What is your business here."

Kit folded his arms and stared at the clerk, who never so much as blinked or budged anything but his bottom lip when he spoke. "You sure you want to know?"

"Quickly. Keep line moving."

"You _like _doing this, don't you?"

"Your foreign questions are not understood. And yes, I do. What is your business here."

Wearily, Kit leaned forward against the counter. "I forgot. What's this line for, again?"

"If you wish to stay in the glorious people's nation of Thembria, it is a very simple process," said the clerk at last.

"I hope so," said Kit.

"Fill out this simple form." The clerk bent down behind the counter, and came back up with a thick stack of papers, plopped them down and pushed them toward the boy. "When you are done, please take seat and wait for processing and approval."

"Are you joking? I've seen encyclopedia sets with less paper! How long is processing?"

"On a good day, it could take as little as, oh... six years."

"Six years? I can't just _wait _here for six years!"

"Glorious People's State restrooms are down hall, around corner. Time limit is two minutes per visit. Limit one visit per day."

"Look, can you just tell me where they're doing the Junior Air Corps?" asked Kit. "I need to talk to somebody there."

"_You_ wish to apply to the brand-new Glorious People's Junior Air Corps?" The clerk leaned forward as to get a better look at Kit. From behind his opaque glasses, he might have been squinting. "Ah, yes! Why didn't you say so?"

Kit's eyes narrowed at him. "Sorry."

"There is no processing time for that, special orders from Colonel Ivanhog Nozzle." The agent took down Kit's name and age on a slip of paper, and beared down on it like a sledgehammer with a huge, red stamp of approval. "Take this pass, turn in down hall for uniform. Interviews are this afternoon."

"Really? That's it?"

"I have been instructed personally by Colonel Nozzle that, on behalf of the gracious Mommyland, for this week only we will welcome any of you deprived non-Thembrian boys to have a chance to attend the most illustrious flying school in the world. If you are accepted, you may stay until graduation. There is however one stipulation."

Kit received the approval slip with both hands and a big smile. This was quickly all turning out to be much easier than he imagined. "Sure, anything! What is it?"

"You stay for longer, you get shot."

* * *

><p>Kit was issued a cadet uniform that consisted of a brown leather jacket with a thick wool collar and inner lining, a garrison cap of the same color, and a long, red scarf for his neck. The questions he was asked by the persons processing his information were few. He was told to get ready in a hurry and he did not mind one bit. As he was changing into his new attire, placing his airfoil and street clothes into an assigned box, he overheard two officers in the next room speaking about him.<p>

"What about medical exam? Written test?" one said.

"No time for anything but to send him to the recruitment center now! High Marshal's orders, for _any _recruits coming in today."

"The _High Marshal _said that?"

"According to Nozzle, he did."

Kit trod across a field of fresh snow, following the directions he was given to the recruitment center, which was one of two very large and broad buildings that sat on top a wide hill. He came to where a group of boys was gathered around, all wearing the same cadet's uniform. Kit approached them a bit timidly at first, but some were talking excitedly about flying, chatter that was music to his ears.

Many of them were gathered around one particular cadet, who stood head-and-shoulders above the rest with an athletic stature about him. His face was bright and excited as he told a tale of how his father became a heroic Ace fighter in the Great War. Kit joined the listening crowd when a small seaplane few overhead, capturing their attention.

"I wonder if we're flying one of those?" one boy asked aloud.

"Naw, that's not Air Corps," the tall cadet replied. "That's a... a... Miniversal Skybridle, it's not ours."

"Actually, it's an Aerobluff Five," Kit said; with his hand over his brow, he squinted to spot the details of the plane. "They're almost copies of each other, except the one Miniversal built has a clunker engine and would choke in this weather. You can tell the difference because the Aerobluff model has a bigger propeller, and it's wider at the nose."

"Oh," blinked the tall cadet. "Yeah, well... Aerobluff would've been my _second _guess."

Kit grinned, somewhat nervously, now that the group was suddenly looking him over from head to toe. He_ did _appear a bit strange to them; after all, there wasn't a speck of blue fur anywhere about him.

"So, your dad's a pilot, huh?" a cadet asked the other.

"Yeah, the best in the country!" said the tall cadet. "Oh, hey! I forgot to tell you guys! My father heard some things about the planes we'll be training in! Brand new interceptors! We're gonna be flying top-of-the-line!"

"Wow," Kit breathed. "How much do you know about them?"

"Well, that's it, so far," said the cadet. "It won't be long until we see for ourselves, though!"

One boy scoffed at all the airplane talk. "What difference does it make, it'll probably be some piece of junk."

Kit frowned at him. "Don't you _want _to fly?"

"Meh. Beats peeling turnips."

"My father's making me join," another said. "He says its my patriotic duty."

"I think it might be neat," said a third boy. "I've never been in an airplane before!"

"It's the best thing in the world," Kit said to him. "I've been in plenty of planes, I don't ever get tired of it."

"You know something about flying, huh?" asked the tall cadet.

"You bet! But no one gives me the chance to show what I can really do. I wanna get into this school so bad I can taste it!"

Loudspeakers over the building's entrance crackled to life. Colonel Spigot spoke:

"Welcome to the Thembrian Junior Air Corps Recruitment Center! Please form a thingle-file line..." His voice suddenly changed to a tone wavering with glee, "...or you will be shot!"

The recruits all ran inside, and lined up in a hallway in front of a big steel door. The hall was windowless and the concrete floor was just warmer than the ice outside. Unshaded lightbulbs tarnished with a yellow tint hung high from the ceiling by cords strewn with cobwebs.

Kit was third in line, the tall cadet was the first. With anxious composure, he patted his jacket down to smooth out all the wrinkles, and made sure his hat was properly centered and snug. His posture was sharply contrasted by the second boy in line, who was slouched, chubby, and had his uniform was unevenly donned with an unzipped coat.

The second boy turned around and shook Kit's hand. "Hello, I'm Bobbo."

"I'm Kit! I hope the requirements to join aren't too tough."

Sergeant Dunder opened the door and led the first recruit into the next room and had him stand next to a desk; it was featureless and severely oversized, typical of Thembrian military decor. It was so tall that one couldn't even see the person sitting behind it, save for his red officer's cap, which was set on top a mountain of messily stacked papers on the front edge. Clouded grey sunshine glowed dimly through two barred, glass-less windows on the far side of the room.

Dunder checked the list he was holding and began reading the boy's information: "Sir, this recruit has perfect eyesight, passed his written pilot exam, and his father was a pilot hero!"

Colonel Spigot's pointed finger shot up from the desktop clutter. "Never mind that junk!"

From the hall, Kit rubbernecked around Bobbo to see what was happening. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but the sudden look of unpleasant surprise on the recruit's face wasn't encouraging.

Spigot grabbed his hat, and, hidden from the view of everyone else, climbed down a set of stairs, coming out through a small door built in the front of the desk. "Let's th-see if he measure's up!"

The recruit stood at attention while Spigot mulled him over from head to toe with hard, scrutinizing glances. The Colonel took a tape measure out of this right pocket, whisked the tape out and let it snap back inside. Then he set one end of the tape on the floor and pulled the other end over his head, but his arms were only able to get as high as the boy's nose. Standing on his toes, Spigot strained to reach higher, but his delusions of normal-height grandeur were no match for the reality of his vertically-challenged stature.

Spigot cleared his throat, rather expectantly, and Dunder, ever-so-nonchalantly, hoisted his commander up to measure the boy. The recruit was beaming proudly, as he was no doubt the most physically fit of all the applicants.

"Five-one, too tall!" exclaimed Spigot. "Send him to turnip-peeling school! Next!"

The boy's jaw would have fallen on the floor if it hadn't been hinged to his head. He wasn't able to muster one quick 'but' in protest before two burly guards stepped from the shadows, plucked him off the ground and carried him away.

"Looks rough," said Kit to Bobbo. "Good luck!"

Bobbo adjusted his scarf and marched into the room, standing at attention just as he had seen the first boy do.

Dunder had to read the boy's information twice to make sure he wasn't seeing things. "Sir, this recruit thinks a cockpit is a hole full of chickens!"

"Who cares," huffed Spigot. He didn't need help with the measurements this time. "Three-foot-two, _perfect_! He goes to pilot school. Next!"

With a leap for joy and a click of his heels, Bobbo strut into the next room. Kit came up right behind him and stood before the Colonel.

Dunder checked his list again, but found no information about Kit other than his name and the most obvious detail, which he exclaimed, "Sir, this recruit's not even Thembrian!"

"Big deal. Three-foot-nine, _very _nice! He's in!"

Dunder shrugged, and moved on to the next cadet...

* * *

><p>That afternoon, all the remaining recruits were sent back down near the airfield, and formed a line in front of a stage. Built out of a solid, flat block of concrete with timber planks for a floor, it was large and permanent, despite being build next to absolutely nothing else of note. There were two microphones stands up, one adjusted significantly shorter than the other. The taller microphone was commandeered by Sergeant Dunder, and just behind him, there was something covered in a white sheet, roughly the size of an automobile and conspicuously shaped of an airplane's wings and tail.<p>

Colonel Spigot was sitting in the back seat of a plate-armored limousine: windowless iron hide like a tank on the outside and soft, pink cushions on the inside. A guard held the door open while the Colonel waited for the proper introduction.

Dunder tested his microphone with a couple of finger taps before speaking to the cadets. "Ahem. You are the best, the brightest, _and _the shortest. And so is the man you owe your life, liberty, and future paychecks to: our _glo-orious_ leader, Colonel Spigot!"

Some of the cadets clapped, halfheartedly at best. Still, it didn't stop Spigot from basking in the glory as if he took the stage with a roaring ovation.

"Thank you, thank you! Perhaps you've _heard _of me? The Scourge of Sausage Creek?"

Not an eyelash was batted.

"You will _all _fly in the Great Patriotic Flounder Day air show thith Thaturday—and _like _it!" said Spigot. "You will be flying in the world's most advanced fighter plane! The _Thunderyak_!"

As Spigot unveiled the airplane with a flourish of a backward tug, the boys took a collective gasp, and admired the Thunderyak with awe-struck gazes. They hardly noticed the Colonel hopelessly tangling himself under the cover sheet.

"Awesome," Kit whispered, feasting on the airplane with his eyes; a polished gun-metal finish sparkled as sterling silver. Its closed, square-frame cockpit was definitely a traditional Thembrian style, but its forward-swept wings and tale-mounted propeller made it appear quite nimble and acrobatic, and a blast to fly. "I'm gonna fly that! In an air show!"

The finer points of the Thunderyak's aerodynamic technology were lost on Sergeant Dunder, but he did notice one peculiar aspect: "Sir, the plane looked _bigger _in the catalog."

Spigot stumbled himself free from the clutches of the sheet just in time to shush him. Dunder bent down to help him to his feet, but was suddenly grabbed by his ear and pulled to the other side of the stage. "_Excuse me_ while I consult with the Sergeant!" said Spigot to the cadets.

Out of the earshot of others, Spigot began to explain: "The thtupid factory gave us the wrong size Thunderyaks! Why do you think I've spent the whole week recruiting twelve-year-olds?"

Dunder pondered the question for a moment. While he couldn't quite see any logic yet, there was that one bottom line that often frequented the Colonel's reasoning: "So the High Marshal won't shoot ya?"

"Er, well, that's _one _reason," said Spigot. "The _other _reason ith that the High Marshal won't notice that the planes are little if _little _pilots are getting into them!"

"Oh! Well I'm glad we're fortunate enough to have so many little pilots in Thembria."

"_What _pilots? Do you think I'm _crazy _enough to let twelve-year-olds fly? But don't worry, _I_ have a plan!"

As the cadets began to talk amongst themselves about the Thunderyak, Kit was already imagining doing Baloo Corkscrews, and basking in the shutter of a thousand cameras and the cheering of the adoring crowd below! This was set to be the best week of his life...

* * *

><p>It had been the most boring day of his life, thought Kit. The second day of flying school had come and gone, the cadets had eaten dinner and were told to study in their barracks until lights-out, and the Thunderyak was not even so much as mentioned since Spigot unveiled it the day before.<p>

"We spent the whole day learning how to tie boot laces," lamented Kit. His feet were dragging as the boys filed into their bunks. "_Who's _wearing boots around here?"

"_Still _beats peeling turnips," another boy replied. "Trust me."

Once they were all inside, two guards secured the door and locked it from the outside. Class was over for the day, and evening had yet to come.

"Psst, Kit!" whispered Bobbo. From his jacket, he presented a small bundle of paper that he was about to unwrap. "I snuck in some of Mom's cookies. I was gonna save 'em, but I don't think I can wait any longer. Want one?"

"Sure, why not."

Kit thanked him and accepted a cookie. He had taken the bunk under Bobbo's and sat down with a long, pining look toward the nearest window. For the moment, overcast sky had broken up, and though thick, fluffy clouds a rare beam of late afternoon sunshine poured a brilliant aura over the snow fields. It was suddenly covered by the eclipsing shadow of the guards passing by.

He frowned and glanced at the ceiling. There were some vented grates and tin tubing stretched from wall to wall; he wondered if any of them were attached to a furnace, and if any were, wished someone would have cranked it up. Then he blinked and cocked his head to the side, because he noticed the ceiling was slanted, curious to him because coming inside he could have sworn that he saw the building's roof was flat. If anything, he wondered, was it not usually to be the other way around?

Some of the boys began to chat amongst themselves, while most dutifully read the textbook they were issued for the Junior Air Corps curriculum: _The Glorious People's National History of Cement._ Bobbo had his propped up by his pillow to hide his snacking. Kit's copy lay discarded under his bed.

Restlessly, he fell back on his pillow, holding his belly, which murmured from something other than hunger. Dinner consisted of a chunk of cabbage soaked in a bowl of he knew not what exactly; it bore an unsavory resemblance to green mud, and tasted none the sweeter. However exotic the menu for his tastes, Kit still managed to clean his plate... little did he know what several hours of tying shoes could do for his appetite.

Despite the trouble breaking out in his stomach, far be it for there to ever be a time when there wasn't room for a cookie. Kit popped the bite-sized treat in his mouth and nearly began choking. "Mph...! Bobbo, this cookie tastes like mackerel!"

"Nuh-uh, herring," said Bobbo. "Isn't it great?"

With watery eyes, Kit forced a swallow, although it took quite a long moment.

"You want another one?" Bobbo asked through a full mouth.

Kit mumbled something of a polite decline, wiping his tongue on his sleeve.

Bobbo sighed wistfully. "Gee, Mom's cookies. I hope I don't start getting homesick. I've never been away from home for so long."

"How long have you been gone?" asked Kit.

"Since yesterday morning," said Bobbo.

"You have a big family?"

"No, it's mostly just me and Mom. Papa's not home very often. He works in the mines. You know how _that _goes."

Kit did not know, but chose not to impose himself by asking.

Then, asked Bobbo, "What's your Mom like, Kit?"

"Me? I don't have one," said Kit. "Been an orphan forever."

"Oh." Bobbo felt a bit embarrassed and thought about apologizing for asking, but the way Kit answered so casually made him very curious. He rolled on his stomach and peered down at him. "How'd you get here?"

"Hitched a ride."

"By yourself?"

"Uh-huh. Why?"

Bobbo sat up again, looking somewhat bewildered as he pondered the experience of hitchhiking. It seemed so dangerous and frightening, nothing he would ever want to try.

He peered down at Kit once more. "Do you... have a place to stay?"

Kit half-chuckled at how concerned he looked. "Of course. I live in Cape Suzette, with my friend Baloo. You ever wanna hear about a great pilot—he's best in the world! I'm his navigator."

"Oh, I see," nodded Bobbo. "What's 'navigator' mean?"

Kit regarded that question with some surprise, though with patience. It was then an established fact in his mind that Bobbo truly did not know an aileron from his elbow, but then, everyone started somewhere. Kit was at least pleased, and a bit flattered, by his bunkmate's interest. It made him feel like an expert.

"It's the guy who reads the maps and figures out what direction you need to go," replied Kit.

"Hey, that's neat! No wonder you know a lot about airplanes. You get to fly all the time. "

"Well... I get to _ride along _all the time," said Kit.

"That's still good, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Kit said, dryly. "Nothing like logging less flying time than a crowbar."

"Huh?"

"Aw, nothing," said Kit. "You guys are lucky, though. They don't have flight school like this back home."

"Yeah, I hear it's pretty lousy to live in Cape Suzette," said Bobbo, with quite a degree of sympathy for his foreign friend.

Not that Kit had taken a particularly strong patriotic bond to the Cape, but he did just then have a proverbial feather ruffled. "Who ever told you _that_?"

Bobbo blinked; the answer, as read by the expression on his face, surprised that Kit was even asking, was apparently the most well known of all public Thembrian knowledge: "Well... everyone."

Though Kit rolled his eyes at the notion, it put in mind that there were indeed circumstances about his daily life in Cape Suzette that to describe them he may have used words stronger than 'lousy.' Usually these circumstances revolved around the legal age of obtaining a pilot's license.

"All I know is that I'm too young to do anything but homework," said Kit. And, speaking of which, he glanced around at the cadets reading their textbooks. "Why are we supposed to read a book about _cement _for a _flying _school?"

"'Cause that's what they say we should read," replied Bobbo.

"But it doesn't make sense," said Kit. There was then some consideration on his part given to the fact that he had just eaten a cookie made of seafood, which helped put his understanding of regional normalcy into perspective. "I just hope tomorrow we get to the flying. Maybe we're resting up for an early start on the runway."

"I wonder if there are gonna be a lot of people watching us at the air show?" mused Bobbo.

"I hope so," said Kit. "I'm ready to go up there a pelican dive and a double-Immelman, and top it all off with an a-_maze_-ing Baloo Corkscrew!"

To Bobbo's ears, Kit may have just as well been speaking in tongues, but it sounded like some impressive airplane stuff. "A double-eyed pelican dive...?"

"Oh, you'll see," smirked Kit. With an imaginary stick and throttle at his hands, he went through the motions of Baloo's signature dive. "I've watched Baloo do it a hundred times. It's a guaranteed crowd pleaser."

"Is your friend really the _best _pilot in the world?"

Kit gazed aimlessly toward the bottom of Bobbo's bunk, and grinned slyly as he thought for a moment. "For now."


	2. Chapter 2

Early the next morning, Kit and Bobbo snuck away from the barracks after a hearty (by Thembrian standards) gruel breakfast and set off down the snow-laden hill toward the airfield.

"Kit, I don't know about this," huffed Bobbo, who apparently, to judge by the way he clopped behind in Kit's footprints out of breath, never had an affinity for running. "What if they find out that we left without permission?"

"Nobody said we _couldn't_," Kit said. "And you could've stayed behind!" He waited at the foot of the hill for Bobbo to catch up. "But, I'm glad you didn't. It's nice having a friend around here."

"Yeah," smiled Bobbo. "Sure is."

"C'mon, I'll hurry as fast as I can," said Kit. "I gotta get a postcard soon so it'll catch Baloo by Saturday!"

The boys crawled under a barbed-wire fence where there was a train station and rows of wooden shacks on the airfield's outskirts; they were told by another cadet they could find a post office there.

By no means matching the hustle and bustle of Cape Suzette, the train station was a small but beating pulse amidst the frozen desolation. Off-duty military pilots with ice shards clinging to their face around the silhouette of where their goggles covered their eyes socialized and inspected goods at the trading posts. Weary, soot-covered miners in hard hats took rest with their mugs atop barrels stacked outside a tavern. An old woman swept the stoop of a general store, which, for the most part, sold frozen fish and can openers.

Behind the station, a black freight train blew its whistle, hot clouds billowing from its oversized smokestack as it inched up the tracks with a seemingly endless burden of cars, a few of them passenger vessels, but most of them open-top boxcars laden heavy with a heaping cargo of crushed rock.

"If you get it out in time, do you think he'll come to see you?" asked Bobbo.

"No, but I wish he would. We were kind of in an argument the last time I saw him, and I'd like him to know there's no hard feelings. Even if he _is _still wrong."

The boys found the post office, so noted by a illustrated sign posted by the swinging doors: a flounder with a big envelope in its mouth. As they entered through the swinging wooden door (and were the only customers present), Kit was venting a few things off his chest: "We fly in his plane, so it's his rules. He's scared to let me try anything because he says I'll end up with my nose in the dirt, as if I wouldn't know what I was doing. He doesn't think I can handle myself in a plane because I'm too young. I'm not a baby! Once he finds out that I'll be in an airshow, he'll know I—!"

Kit choked on his words as he suddenly noticed who was sitting behind the post office counter. He was met by those same big, fogged spectacles; this time they were donned under a green visor. And, immediately from that wrinkled, statuesque countenance: "What is your business here."

"Oh no," muttered Kit. "You work _here_, too?"

"Questions are holding up line," said the old blue hog. "What is your business here."

Kit filled his lungs with a big gasp. "I'm-inna-hurry-an'-I wanna-buy-a-postcard-please!"

The clerk grunted with some kind of contentment at the expedient answer; he reached under the counter and came back up with two postcard, each quite distinctive from the other. "You have a choice. Traditional, or, for an entirely fair and justifiable increase of price, the new Glorious People's Ministry of Tourism and Foreign Relations promotional card."

One card was a photo of an old hovel buried halfway in snow, the solid grey monotony of barren, icy background broken only by a string of telephone poles. The second was a tropic beach, a brilliantly colored artwork with shimmering clear ocean, warm sand, tall palm trees, and dolphins jumping from the sea into the air. The bottom corner read 'Greetings From Thembria!'

"Oooh, a choice," marveled Bobbo. "Gee, Kit, whatcha gonna pick out?"

Kit's eyebrows knitted at the beach postcard, his mouth agape. At length, the question was finally able to breach his loss for words: "What does _this _have to do with Thembria?"

"Right there," said Bobbo, pointing at the greeting. "The name of the country."

"Right. So?"

Bobbo tilted his head, questioningly. "So... what?"

"Quicky!" snapped the clerk. "Keep line moving."

Kit shook his head and set a nickle on the counter. "I'll take the traditional one. I don't suppose you have a glorious people's pencil I could borrow for a minute?"

The clerk snorted an affirmative, bent down behind the counter and this time came up with a stack of papers.

"What's all this?" asked Kit.

"Pencil-lending permission form. Fill out, wait for processing."

"Fill out... with what? If someone doesn't have a pencil, how would you expect them to fill out a form to borrow one?"

"With a pen, of course," replied the clerk.

Kit's next question was served through gritted teeth: "Then can I borrow a _pen_?"

"Silly foreign boy. There are no pens here in Thembria. Ink freezes."

Kit turned to Bobbo for any kind of help, to which his bunkmate astutely suggested, "You better hurry up with it, Kit, or we're gonna be late."

It was back to speaking to the spectacles under the green visor. "Look, sir. All I wanna do is write home real quick. Can't you cut me just a little slack?"

"I cannot grant permission to loan the People's pencils because they are property of the People," replied the clerk. "What would be next? If the People's property was permitted to be passed on without processing, it would be preposterous."

Kit had to take cover under the counter to avoid being sprayed with spittle. "Huh...?"

From his shirt pocket, the clerk fished out an old, cracked, chewed-up pencil. "Without processing, the best I can do is loan you my own."

"That'd be swell!" said Kit. "Thanks!"

However, as Kit held out his hand, the clerk put the pencil back in his shirt, uttering promptly: "You can't have."

"Why _not_?" scowled Kit.

"It belonged to my father, and his father, too," said the clerk. "Glorious family heirloom. You don't touch."

Amidst Kit's groaning and cringing, Bobbo dug in his jacket until he found a pencil of his own—which was hardly in any better condition than the clerk's—and handed it over to Kit. "Here, you can use mine if you want," he said.

"You had one all this—aw, never mind. Thanks." Kit accepted it with a belligerent glare toward the clerk. "It's not a _glorious family heirloom_, is it?"

"Sure is!" Bobbo beamed. "So be careful with it, please."

The clerk folded his arms and sat up straight, smugness flowing abundantly from his tusked frown.

"'Preciate the help, Bobbo," muttered Kit, head ducked as he about-faced out the door.

* * *

><p>For the third day of flight school, the cadets were gathered in a small classroom. The chalkboard in front was full of diagrams of stick figures assuming what resembled ballerina-like poses. It was Thembrian saluting; the many, many nuances of Thembrian saluting.<p>

Colonel Spigot stood on top of the teacher's desk, standing on one foot. "And if I'm standing _thideways_?"

The boys copied his stance, albeit by then with more fatigue and slower responses. "We salute this way," they replied, monotone and by rote. It was the fifteenth time Spigot had gone over the entire assemblage of saluting poses.

Just before saluting began, the boys stood there for two hours watching an old war veteran polish his medal, and explaining every application of the polishing cloth with precise (and extremely repetitive) narration, while Colonel Spigot napped in a chair in the corner with is hat lowered to his snout.

"Good," said Spigot. "You all pass Introduction to Saluting."

"Finally," Kit scoffed, rubbing his tired arm. His feet ached, and his legs felt like putty. Still, there was a gleam of hope in his eye now the boring part was all over. "Flying's gotta be next!"

"_Next_," Spigot announced, "Sergeant Dunder will instruct you on saluting the Great Patriotic Flounder!"

Kit blinked. So much for that gleam of hope. He wondered if he was having a bad dream.

In a single breath, Dunder recited the account of the country's most famous fish, the full, official account as issued many years ago by the Glorious People's Department of Fish, Cabbage, and History: "This is the _Great Patriotic Flounder _who jumped from a stream into an enemy cannon clogging it and saving all of Thembria."

Looking around, Kit saw the other cadets stared at the Sergeant with blank expressions. No one was asking any questions. No one was mentioning flying. And now more saluting. Kit suddenly had a sinking doubt that all of the stalling was more than just his own lost translation with Thembrian culture. It was getting frustrating.

"We salute the Great Patriotic Flounder like this!" Dunder stood on one foot and leaned far forward, making breaststroke gestures with his arms.

With the prospect of another hour of saluting like he was auditioning for the part of a water fountain statue, Kit decided to find out about the flying once and for all.

"Uh, sir?" He raised his hand to speak, a move which surprised the Thembrian cadets, who suddenly regarded Kit as if he was insane. "We've learned bootlace tying, medal polishing, a thousand-and-one ways of saluting you, and _now _we're saluting seafood..."

Tapping his riding crop against the palm of his hand, Spigot glowered at Kit in a manner which the other cadets clearly recognized as a threat to think very carefully of the question before it was asked. "Ye-es?"

"Well, can we fly tomorrow?" asked Kit.

"Tomorrow..." Spigot's eyes even further narrowed. Just the question he didn't want to hear. "We will have _advanced saluting_!"

"Well I think that stinks!" snapped Kit, throwing his arms up in protest. The cadets all stepped back, no longer regarding Kit as if he were insane, but now like more having a death wish. "I wanna fly!"

For a beat, the room was entirely silent with an air of impending doom as all waited for the Colonel's response.

"So. You want to fly, hm?" Spigot jumped down from the desk and circled Kit slowly, eyeing him from head to toe. "Well, we have _thpecial _classes for kids like _you_."

* * *

><p>Just after supper, before the cadets were herded into their barracks, Bobbo cut out of the mess hall to the kitchen to see how his bunkmate was holding up in Spigot's "special" class.<p>

Down the hall, a half-peeled turnip rolled out of an open door, where was also heard the mutters, sniffles, and sudden but common "ouch!" of the novice turnip peeler poking himself in he finger for the umpteenth time.

There he found Kit, slouched on a stool, absently picking away at a turnip he held over his lap. Alone in the kitchen, Kit was surrounded by mountains of red turnips and their shavings on the floor, and after a couple hours had a small pile of peeled turnips beside him to show for it. His thoughts, however, were far elsewhere from the pungent smelling vegetables. "I don't get it," he muttered. "Something's wrong—_ouch_!"

"Are you okay, Kit?"asked Bobbo.

"I'm just great," Kit replied, frowning at the newest scrape on his finger. "I'm in a _flight school _that doesn't teach _flying_. I don't get it."

Bobbo nodded. "This kind of thinking is normal in Thembria."

"Yeah," Kit sighed, thinking that was a considerable summary of the last three days. "But I _left home _so I could fly." His frown furrowed a bit deeper as he sliced away another chunk of turnip skin.

"Flying means a lot to you, huh?" asked Bobbo.

"It means _everything_," said Kit. "I sleep it, I dream it... I think about it once every ten seconds, at least!"

"I know whatcha mean," agreed Bobbo. "I feel that way about shaving ice."

Kit didn't hear him; for that moment, he became lost in thought of all the incomprehensible, mindless work he had been doled and how Spigot was dangling hopes of flying above him, at his fingertips but perpetually out of reach. The gears of his mind had suddenly spun angrily with swift decision. He jumped off the stool, casting the point of the turnip peeler's blade into the floor, with such thrust that he may have wished Colonel Spigot's foot was on the receiving end it.

"I don't care _what's _normal thinking in Thembria," said Kit. "Something's _fishy _around here, and it's not just the saluting!" He brushed by Bobbo and stormed out the door. "I'm gonna find out what it is!"

"Be careful, Kit." Bobbo looked after him curiously and worriedly. Of all the things that _were _considered normal in Thembria, among them was not a twelve-year-old confronting the people in charge. "You could get in trouble!"

* * *

><p>In the shadows of dusk, Kit ran across the snowy acres to the airfield, where he aimed to search for clues. Specifically, he wanted to find the fleet Thunderyaks, since they seemed to be the one thing Spigot was trying to hide from them.<p>

Kicking up long tracks in the snow, he yelped as he stubbed his toes on something heavy and metallic on the ground. He grumbled at it and brushed the snow back to see what it was, finding a discarded plane carburetor. Fortunately, thanks (or not) to the freezing ground, he had not much feeling left in his toes anyway.

He dashed to the first hangar, where a flag pole next to it had Thembria's proud colors (black and white) caught high in the numbing breeze. He scaled the side of the hangar and looked around the corner out in front, then over his shoulder... no patrols were in sight, the coast was clear! It was time to make his move and get inside quickly.

The double doors to the hangar were giant and cast iron. Kit tried to pull them apart at their middle, but a lot of good it did him; they would not budge. Then suddenly they _did _budge, with a great deal of squeaking and clanking as the locks were turned over... someone was about to exit!

Kit bolted back around the corner and jumped behind a snow dune. He heard the big doors clank shut again, and peered up to see two big guards now pacing around the entrance. To his relief, the guards did not look down to see his tracks, and in a moment their own larger footprints stamped away any evidence that he was ever there.

'_That was close,' _he thought,_ 'but I'm not getting cold feet!' _Looking around for another means inside, he trod around to the rear of the hangar where he found a back door, but he could hear metallic hammering noises from the interior; simply walking in was not an option while there were workers inside.

Then the snap of waving the Thembrian flag caught his attention. It was a big flag, and was hoisted much higher than the hangar itself. _'Up' _suddenly looked like an intriguing option...

He went to fetch that heavy airplane part that acquainted itself with his toe moments before, and brought it back with him to the flagpole. There he tied the flagpole's ropes around it, and slowly, quietly, hoisted it to the top while bringing the flag down. Once it was all the way up, he let it free fall, and grabbed onto the flag as it was whisked skyward, taking him with it!

He was shot to the top of the pole, and just barely got his hands around its ball-shaped finial, saving himself from being flung into the air altogether. From there, he clasped onto the rope with one hand and gathered the flag up with the other, unfastened the hooks and grabbed onto all four of the flags corners, then jumped! The flag bloomed into a parachute, and he glided with ease onto the snow laden roof of the hangar.

Once he touched down, he tossed the flag into the wind, quite pleased with his own cleverness.

He found a roof hatch that was unlocked and crawled inside, where he dropped onto one of many wooden beams stretched across the dimly lit rafters. Sure enough, the fleet of Thunderyaks were on the floor, and he spied Spigot and Dunder down there as well. He crawled around the rafters to get a better ear on what they were speaking about, but he found he was going to have to move carefully... even against his meager weight, the wooden beams were creaking and bending.

Colonel Spigot was doing a jig around the planes, singing, "Flounder, flounder, we have the perfect floun-der!" He chuckled giddily. "_General _Spigot, yes, I like the sound of that!" He took a reprise from his celebrating and turned to his Sergeant, who was studying a long sheet that illustrated Spigot's detailed scheme. "Do you understand the plans, Dunder? This year, the High Marshal is finally going to see a perfect flounder formation! And do you know _why_, don't you?"

Dunder nodded, and whipped out a rivet gun from a tool crate at his feet, giving the trigger a quick test squeeze; the sudden noise nearly made him drop it. "Because I'm bolting the planes together?"

"Exactly!" said Spigot. He paced around Dunder in pep-talk fashion, and continued, "It's going to be long, hard, tedious, taxing work, but I just want you to remember _one thing_!"

"What, sir?"

"You're not getting paid for it."

Not that such news made Dunder bat an eyelash. He looked at the plans once more, a bit confused this time. "But sir, how will these kids fly the planes?"

"Ah, but the kids _won't _fly them," said Spigot. "They'll _sit _in them, while Tiny Bubbles, Thembria's smallest adult pilot, flies the lead plane!"

As the Colonel's words sunk in, so did Kit's fingertips into the wooden beam he hid on top of. "We're _not gonna fly_?" he exhaled, scandalized, and did not notice how the beam — which he clasped onto as if he wished it was Spigot's neck in his hands — was beginning to crumble under his chest. "Not gonna fly?"

Spigot and Dunder looked up, seeing and hearing the sudden movement, and in the shadows just saw the figure of someone recoiling in the rafters.

"What the—an intruder!" cried Spigot. "Guards! Guards, hurry, there's an intruder! Don't let him escape!"

Kit went to leap to another beam, but tripped backwards on it, and just caught hold of it again with both hands before he instead took a long drop to the floor.

The two guards who were outside quickly jotted in, with their rifles racked, and they took aim at the shadow of the intruder's dangling legs, their intent as deadly and gleeful as ones starved for the thrill of the hunt.

"Ready, aim...!" yelled Spigot, and he smirked, rubbing his fingers together with savage amusement. It looked like the intruder had gotten back up on the beam, squirming desperately, like someone hoping to escape a bullet-riddled death, and hope was often a comical concept to the Thembrian militant. "Fire _liberally_."

"Uh-oh," gasped Kit, and staring at the business end of two powerful guns, it was a _big _uh-oh. He went to leap to the other end of the beam, but it cracked altogether, as did more, and in one fell swoop, the rafters came falling down in a piled-up crash on top of the Thembrians!

Kit landed on top of the guard hut on the far wall, and while the colonel and his troops were down and dazed in the dust, he quickly stole inside of an open vent shaft.

"We _really _need to get this place termite inspected," wheezed Spigot.

* * *

><p>The cadets in the barracks lounged around quietly reading their textbooks, until the guards opened the doors to let Kit back inside, straight from turnip-peeling duty (or so they assumed). And it could have been said, as Kit's breath fogged the frosty outside air, that he appeared steaming mad.<p>

"That _liar_," he muttered, shaking his fists as the guards closed the door behind him. For the moment, he ignored the other cadets, stomping down the length of the room, lost to himself. "That fraud! He's not gonna to get away with this!"

"What happened?" asked Bobbo. "Did anyone see you?"

"Listen up, guys," said Kit. He climbed on top of the nearest bunk and addressed them all: "I have _terrible _news to report! We're all victims of a huge scam!"

Bobbo gasped. "They're gonna ration the roast turnip dinners?"

"_Much _worse, Bobbo," said Kit. "We're not gonna fly! Spigot's gonna bolt all the planes together in a fish formation, and we're just gonna sit in 'em like dummies! But we can stop him if we unite! We'll march down to headquarters and _demand _to fly! Who's with me?"

To his chagrin, though (as he thought it was a rather good speech), the cadets shrugged and walked back to their bunks in short order. Kit's face fell incredulously; at length, Bobbo was the only one still standing in front of him, and he by no means looked interested in knocking on Spigot's door.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," said Bobbo. "No one _cares _about the flying."

That was all too terribly apparent to Kit by then, and it stung. "_I_ care," he said. He jumped off the bunk and angrily brushed past Bobbo. "It's not just about the flying, it's about our rights as men!"

"But we're not men," shrugged Bobbo. "We're boys. Flying's too dangerous for us."

Kit stiffly paused in mid-step, and fur bristled over the collar of his jacket. Hearing it from Baloo was one thing; hearing it from a fellow twelve-year-old should have amounted to some type of treason. In a beat, he swung around on his heel with a seething glare. "Oh _yeah_? Just tell the guys to look up at the sky at midnight. I'll _show _you how dangerous flying is!"

In a huff, Kit climbed back on the top bunk, and from there leapt to grab onto a stretch of pipe that was ice-cold and probably for water. He scaled the pipe hand-over-hand until he came to a tubular metal shaft that branched out all across the ceiling; he climbed on that and crawled to a grate that lead to the loft, and all that was in his way were four screws holding the grate to the ceiling. For that, he fished from his coat pocket a spoon pilfered from the mess hall, the end of which fit nicely into the grooves of the screws, and in a few moments he had climbed into the loft and eventually escaped through the roof.

Bobbo looked on with mouth agape as Kit was commencing all of this, particularly when he produced the spoon, as it was apparent this kind of escape plan was not carried out on the spur of the moment. "How long have you been thinking about getting out this way?" asked Bobbo.

"Since the first day," replied Kit. Then he was gone.

* * *

><p>As the hour drew late, there was some speculation among the Thembrian cadets as to where their foreign classmate had wondered off and what he was doing. Bobbo had passed on the message to look to the sky at midnight, but the general agreement among the cadets was that the Cape Suzette kid was nuts and was probably already apprehended by the guards. Or, another popular theory was that he was merely frozen somewhere in the snow (it was often rumored that foreigners were severe tenderfoots when it came to a little itty bitty chill... even presently when it was a pleasant twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit). By midnight they were all asleep as usual... until they were abruptly woken by the blasts of tank cannons, so booming and so close that it shook them from their bunks. They yelped and huddled together near a window.<p>

"We're under attack!" one boy shouted. They all dove from their beds to the floor, ducking their heads under their arms as they had been instructed since memory.

Alarms were blaring and soldiers were shouting frantically. Hastily the locks of their room's doors came undone, and a guard rushed inside, where he counted the heads of the frightened cadets. Their eyes were wide and questioning and they silently pleaded with him for answers, or at least for instructions, but he only swallowed and counted again, and then once more. Then he bolted out of the room; in his haste he forgot to shut the door.

"Why... why did he do that?" a cadet asked.

"It's Kit!" said Bobbo. "Kit's flying!" He ran out the door, with the other cadets following shortly behind. There they witnessed a lone Thunderyak not quite flying but scurrying across the airfield on its wheels, with a whole line of firing army tanks in fast pursuit of it.

It seemed that Kit was planning to take one of the Thunderyaks for a joyride, although he may have miscalculated the guards' preparedness for another intrusion, and perhaps further underestimated the typical Thembrian response to burglary: roll the tanks first, ask questions after the body parts have been shoveled up.

One of the cadets yawned. "This again?"

"He really _is _crazy," remarked another.

In any event, Kit was giving an entire platoon of Thembrian soldiers a sporting chase, though with more tanks responding from the ice-paved roads from either side of him, he was suddenly left with nowhere to turn, and ahead he was fast approaching a multi-story concrete building that was certain to put an end to his attempted flight before it even began.

Yet, the Thunderyak was not slowing down...

"What's he gonna do," scoffed a cadet, "run down the door, drive up the stairs and take off from the roof?"

Kit's plane burst inside the building, with the tanks mowing down the wall in pursuit, and the shocked cadets stood with wide eyes and bated breath as all the blasting and crashing noises echoed over the snow drifts.

"Well, there's where it ends," said another cadet. "How'd he think he was gonna get away with it?"

The building shook and smoke poured from some of its windows. The cadets expected the ruckus to stop any second, meaning Kit had likely been blasted into pieces, but the unseen chaos kept going. The cadets began to mutter amongst themselves.

"What's he doing in there?"

"You don't think he'll actually..."

"No way. There's no way... is there?"

With the chase ongoing, over each passing moment it was ever more apparent that the kid from Cape Suzette was not going to give up, no matter what. Perhaps it was a sense of rooting for the underdog, but the cadets then began to grin and hope that they would see that errant Thunderyak take off.

Rifles were then firing; the cadets saw the muzzle flashes from the buildings roof, which meant Kit had somehow made it that far. There was the sound of the Thunderyak's engine revving... he was going for it!

The cadets took a collective gasp, and suddenly the Thunderyak shot forth from the roof and took to the air like a bird, and there was much laughing and cheering.

"He did it! He's flying!" cried Bobbo. "He's flying! He's...! Um... got a building in his way."

And it was not just _any _building, but the landmark military fortress that housed among other things Colonel Spigot's office and quarters. Though the cadets saw the plane making a beeline for its massive gray walls, it was more than they could say for Kit before it was too late. They all flinched and cringed when the plane went sailing into one of the windows on the top story, and there it crashed to a halt, wings clipped and its tail poking out between the tall but narrow concrete frame.

As the dust was settling, the sirens quelled and more soldiers came from around the airfield and ran into the building after the Thunderyak. The young Thembrians watched on for a moment, stunned and quiet.

"Wow," said a cadet softly. "He _did _it. Sort of."

"I wonder if the colonel saw any of that?" gulped Bobbo.

* * *

><p>What were the odds, thought Sergeant Dunder, that Colonel Spigot was not only watching the whole ordeal-frozen in scandalized terror as his whole scheme was about to explode before his very eyes-but that he was watching it all from the very window that Kit crashed the Thunderyak through, where the nose of the plane came to a crumbled halt on top of Spigot's very desk.<p>

Had it not been that the desk was up to Thembrian carpentry standards for military buildings (which is to say, it weighed five hundred pounds and provided as an excellent bomb shelter), the colonel might not have been so fortunate as to come crawling out of the wreck unscathed.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," said Dunder to his seething commander, "but we won't find another boy the right size before Saturday. If you throw Kit to the polar bears, you're going to have an empty plane, and if the High Marshal sees that..."

Spigot was pacing around the floor of his quarters, muttering foul oaths in angry growls and wringing his swagger stick in his hands. "Thith ith terrible! Terrible!" he cried. "If I can't even replace him, what am I thuppothed to _do _with that bothersome brat!"

"He's not like the other cadets," said Dunder. "He actually joined the Junior Air Corps expecting to fly."

"Fly? _Fly_? Where did he get the idea that twelve-year-olds can fly in Thembria?"

Dunder inwardly agreed and gave that question some serious thought, and replied as he suddenly remembered, "Oh! I think it was when you told him, 'You'll be flying the most advanced fighter plane in the world!'"

"Enough!" shouted Spigot. "Oh, those yokels from Cape Suzette are so thpoiled and reckless! Don't they understand anything! Thank heavens that _Thembrian _boys know their place. Why, what would become of our glorious Mommyland if we allowed our children to chase thilly dreams and told them they could be anything they wanted?"

"I shudder to think," Dunder muttered dryly.

"It would be chaos!" said Spigot. "The _sheer and utter _kind! Why, instead of one, we would have _hundreds _of kids taking off in airplanes and crashing into buildings!" On that thought, Spigot stopped pacing and huffed into the adjacent office to check on the progress of the clean-up effort. Soldiers were still hard at work to quickly disassemble the plane and take it piece by piece back to the hangar, and from there they would have to very hastily hammer out the crumbled metal frame and put it all back together in working order.

Spigot whimpered as he thought of the possibility that the High Marshal would find out about any of this, but his face was quick to grow dark and angry again. He stormed back into his quarters, cursing and swishing his swagger stick around. "That boy is messing with the _natural order _of things!"

"He said he was sorry," said Dunder.

"Sorry, hmph. Sorry!" Spigot stood huffing by a window, with his foot tapping impatiently as he searched for an idea, and his scowl only grew deeper as he realized that nothing he _truly _wanted to do with the little troublemaker was going to suffice, for the boy had to be in _at least _ambulatory condition to put on a proper act in front of the High Marshal, and he was forced to resort to less-than-painful methods.

"Fine," the colonel grumbled. "He has to be in the airshow, but I can't risk him taking another chance. So perhaps if we made him see things _our _way, hmm?"

"How so, Colonel?"

"Dithipline, Dunder! Dithipline! Show him we mean _bithness_! We have to make sure he doesn't have time to cause any more trouble! Just until Thaturday, so he can fill that blasted seat!" At that, Spigot paused and wrung his hands together in delight. "And _then _I can feed him to the polar bears!"

* * *

><p>The fourth morning of "flight school" found the cadets in the same routine as they had been practicing: out of the barracks, gruel for breakfast, and then off to the classroom with Spigot and Dunder. There was, however, one detail different: Kit was not with them.<p>

All morning there were quiet conversations whispered about his flight attempt, and concern over what had happened to him. Then, there was one peculiar sight breaking the monotony as they left the mess hall and trekked outside single-file over the frosty paths: they saw Kit running across the campus, a big bucket of ice in each hand, being chased by soldiers with leashed, wolf-like hounds barking and snarling fiercely at his heels.

Spigot halted the line to watch, and, though he did not say anything, the way he rocked gloatingly on his feet with his chest puffed, he was expectant of the cadets to pay dire attention. "_That _is just an_ ex-thample_ of what happens to bad recruits," he said at last, as Kit disappeared yelping behind the snow dunes.

His gloating was interrupted, however, by the lack of awestruck silence when the cadets began to huddle up and whisper with Sergeant Dunder. Spigot cleared his throat loudly, and they fell back in line.

Some time later, after the guard dogs got tired, Kit was brought to the Thunderyak hangar for his next task. At the entrance, he was met by Spigot, Dunder, and a tin pail of soapy water.

"Oh, you're not tired _already_!" said Spigot. "There's so much to do!" He stepped to the side and gestured at numerous Thunkeryaks within the hangar. "These planes just sitting here... _not _being wrecked by twelve-year-olds... can get awful _dusty_."

"Whatever you want," panted Kit, and he leaned forward on his knees. "Please... just let me catch my breath."

At that, Spigot cracked him across the shin with his swagger stick. Kit jumped with a shrill yelp and stumbled backwards.

"_Wakey wakey_," snarled the colonel, and he threw a pointed finger toward the wrecked Thunderyak in the corner. "Who's resting with this big mess you made! Now pick up the bucket and get to work!"

With fists clenched and murderous gleam in his eye, Kit's singular thought was to pound Spigot's snout into fuzzy blue putty. If not for the view of Thunderyaks over the stout hog's shoulder that helped him keep his temper in check and his goal in view, the night could have been disastrous.

Kit took a deep breath through his teeth, picked up the soap bucket and the sponge within, and commenced work cleaning the planes. The tired misery on his face was pure bliss to the Colonel, who merrily left him under the watch of the two guards posted in the hangar, which the strict orders for them not to give him a moment's rest until every single plane was sparkling.

Hours passed; Kit meticulously scrubbed plane after plane, every inch from nose to tail and from top to bottom, under the guffaws and taunts of the guards. After every plane he had to ask the guards _nicely _for permission to get more water for his bucket, and worse yet, the ice-cold water pouring from the indoor faucet was but a trickle and took seemingly forever.

During one of his trips to fetch more water, he spied some tools left on the floor by the wrecked Thunderyak... including a wrench that seemed to sparkle at him. A pity, he thought, such a useful tool was left unattended... he kept it in mind to sneak it inside the sleeve of his jacket and give it a good home under the mattress of his bunk until the air show.

Before long, his fingers and arms ached fiercely, and his eyelids were growing unbearably heavy, but he pushed himself, which each stroke of the sponge. As sun had set and the overcast sky was charcoal gray, he was finally coming to the last plane , twenty-five of them in all. By that time, over the hours splashing himself a bit with each dunk of his hand into the pale, he was dripping from head to toe in soapy water.

Sergeant Dunder came to the hangar and excused the guards from their duty. "Go on, I'll make sure it all gets taken care of," he said. The guards saluted him (on one foot, of course) and marched outside.

Kit was leaning against the last Thunderyak, wiping his brow against his sleeve. Dunder asked, "Are you okay?"

"Great," mumbled Kit. "Can't you tell?"

Dunder sighed. "The other cadets want me to help you escape."

"Thanks, but no dice," said Kit. He took a sharp breath and promptly resumed scrubbing down the plane. "I'm not giving up."

"But, Kit..."

"I'm not giving up!" snapped Kit. He climbed up on the plane's wing and started wiping down the windshield. "I'm gonna fly one of these planes down his _lying throat _on Saturday! I'm gonna show him, you, Baloo... I'm gonna show everyone!"

"But don't you see?" said Dunder. "You'll never have a chance. The planes are _bolted _together."

Kit glanced at him through the corner of his eye. "Yeah, that might throw a _wrench _in my plan."

"Things'll only get worse if you keep trying," said Dunder, shaking his head. "It's not worth it."

Kit suddenly stopped scrubbing and scowled at the sergeant's reflection against the plane's cockpit glass. "You don't know what it's worth," he said, and dunked his sponge hard into the pail.

He gave the glass a few more swipes, and finally had to pause, for a wave of weary dizziness overtook him. Dunder, meanwhile, rather sympathetically, fidgeted for the right words to talk him out of getting into more trouble before it was too late.

"You know, you can't win against him," replied Dunder, at length. "He's in charge."

It made Kit sneer the way that Dunder said that last part, in such a matter-of-fact tone as if it somehow simply explained and excused everything, absolutely. "I don't care," he hissed. He slid off the wing and gained not but a step before he had to lean against the plane's tail before his legs betrayed him. "I've got flying in my blood, and _no one's _gonna stop me!" At that, he had waved his arm at Dunder as to shoo him away, flinging sponge water into the sergeant's face.

"But look what ya just did," said Dunder, jerking his thumb at the wrecked Thunderyak.

Kit blinked at the scrambled metallic heap, his sight a bit fuzzy. "You mean the crash? Well... what do you expect? There was a building in my way!"

Suddenly Spigot was behind him. "Get back to work!" shouted the colonel, making Kit start. At least fortunate for Kit's benefit, Spigot had not heard much if any of the previous conversation, and in continued to be quite pleased with himself at the boy's torment. To boot, as he sauntered into the hangar, he was munching on a chocolate bar and smacking his fingers to make a show just _how _pleased he was.

"I'm done, sir," muttered Kit. "Can't I please just go to bed?"

Spigot looked him over from head to toe, grinning fiendishly. "Tisk, tisk, you missed a spot," he said.

Kit squinted at the plane. "Wha'... where?"

Spigot said nothing, but wiped the chocolate-smeared fingers on the side of the Thunderyak, leaving an unsightly smudge on the polished gunmetal. Kit sighed and began to clean the smudge away, but it would have seemed that the colonel was not quite content.

"Oh, no no," said Spigot. "If you missed _one _spot, you probably missed _others_. Start all over again... _from the beginning_!"

"Th-the _beginning_?" stammered Kit. His knees nearly buckled at the thought. From over Spigot's head Dunder frowned, and the look he shared with Kit urged the boy to take him up on his offer and get out of Thembria fast; Kit read him, he understood... he just couldn't agree.

"I'll need another bucket of water," he sighed, and brushed by the two of them.


	3. Chapter 3

Much later that night, Kit was allowed back to the barracks with the other cadets. He staggered inside and went straight for his bunk, his eyes barely open, and never noticing the silent shock the other boys gazed at him with from their bunks. They trusted that Dunder had spoken to him about leaving, but to see that he had refused and was willing to take more of what Spigot could dish out at him, that was one thing they did not expect.

Kit just threw himself face-first into bed, nuzzling his pillow like its threadbare softness was the most precious thing in the world to him... and, at least for the moment, it was.

"You look awful, Kit," said Bobbo, leaning his head from the top bunk. "But... you smell clean!"

"Thanks, Bobbo," mumbled Kit. "You're a real comfort."

"Don't worry, I'm gonna arrange for your escape," said Bobbo.

"No, but thanks anyway," said Kit. "That would be giving up..." As he spoke, a spark of defiance against Spigot rallied him enough energy to sit up and clench his fists at the thought of the Colonel's face. "... and I'm no quitter!"

"But they're _torturing _you," said Bobbo. "You _must _leave."

"Oh, I am, but I'm not _sneaking _out, I'm _flying _out." Kit rolled off the bed and went to the foot of the bunk, pulled the mattress up and took out the postcard he had written just before his joyriding escapade. "But first I'm gonna show everyone just what a great pilot I am!"

A sudden yawn caught him, and he slouched, seemingly sinking where he stood. He sat back down on the mattress and handed Bobbo the postcard. "But I don't think I'm gonna get a chance to send this off, not with _him _watching me. Could you, please?"

After some hesitation, Bobbo took it and nodded, with a mix of excitement and fear in his eyes. It was, after all, his first covert mission, and from what he could tell, he was perhaps learning a thing or two from a professional.

* * *

><p>Kit did not exactly need a crystal ball to accurately predict that the next day would for him hold more of the same trying and laborious tasks. He was forced to skip breakfast, did more running, and, around midday, he was inside the barracks, scrubbing the floor on his hands and knees. Bobbo stole away from the mess hall to greet him.<p>

"Hello, Kit!"

"Hiya, Bobbo," said Kit, in a soft, raspy voice. "What's new?"

"Well, today was new toothbrush day!"

Kit turned around and showed him with what he had been scrubbing the floor. "Yep. Got mine right here."

"Yikes," frowned Bobbo. "Sorry."

"Nah, no reason to be," said Kit. "I'm not."

"I got your postcard in the mail this morning," said Bobbo.

Kit gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. "Thanks, I owe ya one. How's class going?"

"More saluting," shrugged Bobbo.

Kit resumed scrubbing little soapy circles on the floor. "Sounds like I'm not missing much."

"We get our plane assignment tomorrow, for the air show," said Bobbo. "They're going to show us how to turn them on."

"I guess that's all you'll need to know," said Kit, not hiding so well some disdain in his tone.

Bobbo watched him scrub for a moment, contemplating all the work he was putting in to make it to the air show. "We saw you take off, Kit," he said, after a moment. "All the guys are talking about it. Well, when the Colonel's not around."

A smirk washed over Kit's face, and his ears perked. "Yeah?"

"Yeah! We all ran out to watch...!" Though he began excitedly, Bobbo's voice trailed off. "Then... we saw you crash."

"Crash, I — it wasn't fair!" cried Kit. "Stupid building was in my way!"

"Oh. You think you'll be coming back to class soon?"

"I don't know," said Kit. "I'll do whatever they say, just until Saturday. As long as I'm in the air show, that's all I want."

"But... you know they're not gonna let us fly, not for real."

"If I needed their permission, I'd ask for it," said Kit, flatly. As low as the temperature was outside, he was getting steamed under the collar at the mention of that ugly, doubting word 'but' being thrown about.

"But what if you get in more trouble?" asked Bobbo. Kit's back was turned to him, thus he could not really see the toothbrush _grinding _into the floor more than brushing it. With a rigid frown, Kit refused to answer such a question anymore, until Bobbo followed up with another query: "Or... worse?"

Kit threw down his toothbrush and jumped to his feet, suddenly glaring eye-to-eye with Bobbo. "What are you _afraid of_, Bobbo?" he snapped. "What do you think's gonna happen if you ever stand up for yourself? You let 'em lie to you, you let 'em push you around, and now you guys are gonna let them get you in an airplane and make it just as good as wearing puppet strings! Why can't you see _what's wrong _with that?"

Bobbo shrank back, stunned and silent. Kit was suddenly too ashamed to look him in the eye.

"I'm sorry," said Kit. "I didn't mean that. I'm so tired right now I can't even see straight." Sullenly, he got back down on the floor, hunched over the toothbrush, and continued his labor. "I don't even know _what _I'm thinking right now. It's just... this is my chance... I want to fly more than anything."

"I know you want to," said Bobbo. "I just don't know if you _should_."

"Well, thanks for your concern," said Kit. "But this is one bird that they're not gonna keep in a cage."

"But just because you can't do what you want, doesn't mean you're in a cage," said Bobbo.

"Look, no offense," said Kit, "but your whole country gets told what to eat for breakfast every day. What _does _it mean? It doesn't matter what you want around here, you never get a choice!"

Bobbo shrugged, and thought for a moment. "It means," he said, "no matter what, you can still always choose to do the right thing." He nodded, pleased, thinking to himself that he probably sounded quite profound.

Kit's floor scrubbing came to a slow halt. Bobbo's words, for once, struck him in such a way that a little tinge of conscience hissed at him louder than he could immediately hush away.

He came to Thembria with a promise, and all he really wanted to do was to see the promise kept. That was nothing to be ashamed about that, he thought... despite Baloo was no doubt left worrying back home... despite the plane he was going to fly away with was not his to take... despite that regardless of what an impressive acrobatic display he put the Thunderyak through, he was bound to be the cause of a lot of trouble for a lot of people once the air show was disrupted. He had already thought of all these things, but was doing a fine job of ignoring them with his big dream at long last within an arm's reach. For that moment, though, the right thing to do seemed an awful lot more complicated than it just did five minutes before.

Then Colonel Spigot stormed inside the room, and that little voice of conscience that was just previously whispering in Kit's thoughts suddenly bellowed, 'The heck with it!'

"_What's _going on here?" yelled Spigot, a question mostly aimed at Bobbo. "What do you think you're doing, talking to this troublemaker?"

"Bobbo was just telling me that I should learn to listen to you better, sir," said Kit, cutting in before Bobbo, growing week in the knees, passed out altogether.

"Scram!" said Spigot to Bobbo, who bolted from the room in a flash. Then Spigot smugly sauntered in a circle around Kit, eyeing him and his work with intense scrutiny. "Well, well," he said," don't we look tired. But what a _fantastic _job on the floor! Why, at this rate, it should only take you _all week to finish_. Hurry it up!"

"I'll finish it before the guys come back," said Kit, in a low tone.

At that, Spigot "accidentally" kicked over Kit's soapy pail as he walked past it. "Oops! Clumsy me!" he said, with snorts and snickers. "I hope that doesn't set you back much."

Kit set the pail upright again, calmly, without so much taking his eyes off the little area of floor he was currently working on. "It won't."

For the lack of a reaction, Spigot's teeth were clenched. "Get one thing thtraight, fly-boy, _I'm _in charge around here," he snarled. "What _I_ thay goes, you do what I thay, when I thay it! And if you think its rough now... you don't know the half of what I can do."

There was a silence, and Kit was still except for a swallow, then he replied in a quiet growl, "Consider it straight."

Spigot mumbled to himself in angry breaths and stomped out of the room, saying, "I thought it might be a mistake to recruit outside of the country. What kind of bumpkins do you think we are? Only a _kid like you _would think we let twelve-year-olds fly in Thembria!"

As soon as Spigot slammed the door behind him, Kit's sight fell blurry with tears. He slumped to the floor in a weary heap, burying his face in his arms. Tired, doubtful, and frustrated hardly began to describe what he was feeling, and with the air show still two days away... it seemed like an eternity.

"What am I getting myself into," he muttered. "I can't put up with this anymore." Maybe Dunder was right, he thought; maybe there was no way to win against Spigot.

He took a deep breath and rested his eyes. He thought about the Thunderyak and remembered what it was like, for those few seconds, to have taken it airborne into the night, and even though the sky was blanketed in thick overcast, it would seem in his memory that the moon was crisp and bright, and the stars had cheered him on.

Such visions soon became haunted by the repeated echoes of Spigot's voice, slobbery lisp and all: _'Only a kid like you!'_

What was worse, Baloo was saying it, too. _'Only a kid like you!'_

Then, as browsing through an old photograph album, the visions of his thoughts turned back to the first time he had ever seen an airplane, though he had no longer a recollection of exactly how old he was at the time, and most of the details were fuzzy, but the sight of that airplane in the sky, that was crystal... he was sitting on grass, it was a sunny afternoon, and there were other children running around the yard, wearing the same gray, tattered clothes, as all the orphans wore.

He was looking at small flock of pigeons perched on top of a chain-link fence that surrounded the yard, and a buzzing sound from behind caught his attention. He blinked and squinted toward the bright sky... there was the _strangest _bird he had ever seen, and it was swooping low over the nearby hills. It was moving faster than anything he had ever thought possible, and it turned and approached his direction. With tremendously wide eyes, he realized it was a machine, and that someone was inside flying it, and his heart began to race.

In seconds, the shadow of the bi-wing plane sped over the orphanage, and the pilot waved to the children below. The sun sparkled from his goggles, and his neck scarf was like a flag caught high in the wind. Kit ran across the grass, chasing after it with an amazed smile leading the way, reaching up with both hands as if he could grab onto the end of the pilot's scarf... and then there was the fence, and the chase was no more.

All too quickly, the plane was so high and far that he could not see it anymore. He began to climb the links of the fence, but thought twice of it and stopped before he was caught and got in trouble; still, he stood there, dreamily staring at the horizon, and like a cup put under a waterfall his imagination was overflowing; to be in the sky and unfettered as a bird, where there were no fences.

One never heard about the troubles and woes of eagles and angels. The same could not be said of the children around him, the ones who had been in the orphanage for years and were getting too old to stay. When he ran away from the orphanage not many years later, as often as he could he stayed in the sky, a vagabond hiding in plane after plane, ever quick and ready to leave the sordid world on the ground for a new horizon...

The next thing Kit realized was Sergeant Dunder shaking him on the shoulder. "Kit, you better wake up!" he said. "You don't want the Colonel to see you asleep on the job."

Kit stirred groggily and blinked the Thembrian barracks back into focus, not without a momentary longing to trade the dull, grey and cold of his surroundings for the bright, blue and warm of his dream. "Sorry," he mumbled as he sat up. "Won't happen again."

"Good news!" declared Dunder. "I talked the Colonel into letting you rejoin your class tomorrow!"

"Swell," said Kit, cracking a bit of a smile, though that melted back into a frown with his next thought: "I guess he wants me working until then..."

"Nah, why don'tcha go catch up with the others," said Dunder, helping Kit to his feet.

"But, the Colonel..." said Kit.

"The High Marshal just put him in charge of _Mrs. High Marshal's _laundry," said Dunder. "So until he gets that sorted out, he'll be too busy to notice you. But you gotta cross your heart, no more tricks."

"Aye aye, Sergeant," said Kit, in a breath of relief. "Thanks."

"I think you should leave as soon as the air show's over," said Dunder. "He won't need you anymore after that."

"Way ahead of you," replied Kit. As he walked in front of Dunder, the Sergeant couldn't see the glint in his eye. "I got plans on how to get out of here."

* * *

><p>Upon that Saturday, Baloo was exactly where he would have wanted to have been... at <em>Louie's<em>. That day, however, there was no dance in his step or laughter in his voice. He was reclusive and spoke with no one, sitting alone at a table until Louie joined him with a gift of a mango shake to lighten his spirit.

"Aw, I miss that kid, Louie," Baloo sulked, slouching over his drink.

"Don't worry, big fella," said Louie. "Kit's just gotta blow off a little steam."

"A _little _steam? He's been gone for a week!"

"Okay, a _lot _of steam," admitted Louie. "But he'll be back."

Baloo sighed, swirling his finger over the froth of his drink. "Becky says it ain't my fault. I don't know what I could've said different. It seems like every time I try to do somethin' for his own good, it all goes haywire."

"I'd ask if you ever let him take the stick once in awhile," said Louie, "but judgin' from that little joyride he took around my docks, I'm guessin' he's pretty comfortable at not waitin' for permission."

"That's just it!" said Baloo. "He's never done nothin' like _that _before, just takin' off on his own. What's he gonna pull next time?" Sullenly, he took a sip from his mango shake, and the whole fiasco with Kit and Daring Dan's Air Circus stank in his mind like old trash. "An' what can I do. Last time I tried to put my foot down, it went straight in my mouth, an' he was fixed to go away for good."

"Wait, he _what_, now?" asked Louie. "When was this?"

Baloo seemed not to hear the question, lost in his own worried thoughts as he stared at the nicks in the table. "If I can't stop 'im... and he ends up gettin' hurt... I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"So, _do _ya ever let him take the stick, then?" asked Louie. "Let 'im air it out of his system once in a while?"

"Once in a while, sure," replied Baloo. He took another sip from his shake, and the uneasy look on his face read that he was perhaps not being entirely honest. "Maybe... not for a while."

Louie tilted his head, waiting for an explanation.

"I don't know. I got it hard enough tryin' to keep him from gettin' too cocky with his cloud-surfin' stunts. He's a real smart kid, Louie, just... just..."

"Head stuck way in the clouds with no sane fear for his own hide," suggested Louie.

"Exactly!" said Baloo. "Liable to scare ya half to death sometimes."

Louie nodded, knowingly. "Yup. Sure does remind me of an old friend."

Baloo reared his head, with an expression of genuine shock. "Who? Me?"

"Don't 'who me' _me_, Cuz!" laughed Louie. "I've known ya for too long! You know, when Kit took your plane for a spin, I couldn't help but think that the acorn ain't rollin' too far from the tree."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" asked Baloo.

"How many times have _you _wound up with _your _nose in the dirt 'cause your head was too big for your brains?"

Baloo blinked, then again, as if not one but several instances suddenly registered. "Why're we talkin' about _me _all the sudden? An' whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Ha! I'm on _your _side, Clyde!" said Louie, in between guffaws. "I'm just sayin', you got your work cut out for ya. But lucky for him, if there's one cat that's gotta know exactly how it feels to be twelve and _ca-razy_ about airplanes, it's you! Put yourself in his shirt for a minute, and you'll figure somethin' out." He raised his mango shake to Baloo and took a sip from it, though it was more for hiding his lips as he finally muttered, "I hope."

Baloo groaned, and his chin fell into the palm of his hand. "I don't know _what _I'm gonna do. I'm just worried about him gettin' in a plane."

Just then, a postman making his rounds approached them. "Hey Louie!" he said. "Got a postcard care o' you for a Mr. Baloo!"

"That's me," said Baloo. He accepted the postcard and glanced over the cold, gloomy picture on the front. "Huh. Who 'n the world would send me mail _here_?"

"Someone that _knows _better," muttered Louie.

Baloo read aloud the back of the card, on which was written:

_Dear Baloo,  
><em>_Flying in the __Big Airshow__Saturday!  
><em>_Gonna do a Baloo Corkscrew.  
><em>_Wish you were here,  
><em>_-Kit_

"He's gonna do what?" cried Baloo. There was no reading it a second time, and no time for goodbyes. In a beat he was making a beeline out of the club, with a singular thought: "I gotta get that kid before he winds up with his nose in the dirt!"

* * *

><p>There's no dirt in Thembria, mused Sergeant Dunder, so why did his mother always tell him to scrub underneath his fingernails? This, like many others, was a mystery for greater minds than his. And that had absolutely nothing to do with his present situation, which was getting through the air show without someone winding up in front of a firing squad, or worse.<p>

The Thunderyaks were neatly posed on the glistening runway, each one bolted together in the perfect formation of the Great Flounder. Inside the planes' hangar, the cadets were lined up, Dunder with them, and he was quite fidgety as he tried to remember if he had secured _all _the bolts in place. He stuck his head out the hangar entrance to take another look at his fastened-together masterpiece, and saw at last the _real _pilot of the formation coming his way.

"Everyone, say 'hi!' to the great ace pilot, Major Tiny Bubbles!" said Dunder to the recruits.

And, from around Dunder's flank, stepped the Great Thembrian Ace himself... all three feet of him, postured straight, puffed, and proud in flight goggles and a highly decorated jacket that told of his amazing war escapades. Really, he was all tusks and medals.

"Hi," the cadets replied, with a level of enthusiasm that could be compared to, perhaps, that of a dead frog.

Major Bubbles greeted the cadets with the traditional Flounder Salute, which was returned in unison by each boy.

Then Dunder gestured for the recruits to begin marching out the hangar and take their places. "In your planes," he said, "and remember, start your engines, but leave the flying to the... er... the, uh..." He was looking at Major Bubbles, whose flourished swagger brought up the rear of the single-file line, and whose forehead barely reached the height of the Sergeant's belly button. "... grown-up?"

As the cadets hurried to their assigned planes, Kit paused and turned to Bobbo. "Hey, I almost forgot," he said, and pulled from his jacket a chocolate bar. "I got this for you."

With wide and grateful (and hungry) eyes, Bobbo accepted the gift. "Wo-ow! Where'd you get _this_?"

"Doesn't matter," grinned Kit. "Just don't let Spigot see."

Earlier, to ensure that his plane was at the formation's very tail, and thus one of the planes that was fastened to the rest of the formation by only a single bolt, Kit had arranged to trade planes with another cadet. He jumped into the open cockpit, and Bobbo was in the plane adjacent to him.

"Are you really gonna go through with this, Kit?" asked Bobbo.

"You bet your aileron!" replied Kit. "I'm gonna do a Baloo Corkscrew, and then coast all the way home!"

Bobbo nodded, and gave him a thumbs-up. To him, it still all seemed too dangerous, and still not exactly right, but undeniably he was a fan of his foreign friend, and there was a soft touch of sadness in his voice as he bid him farewell. "Good luck, bunkmate Kit," he said.

"Goodbye, bunkmate Bobbo," replied Kit. They closed their cockpit canopies, and did the rest of the cadets, and quickly, one by one, the propellers of the entire Thunderyak formation began to spin.

Nearby, and surrounding them, the airfield was lined with festive, fish-shaped floats which were to be driving down the runway at the same time of the Great Patriotic Flounder Flyby, as well as several polished tanks and scores of marching soldiers, all to make a grand parade past the High Marshal's seat.

Kit spied the High Marshal himself, and his wife, who, together in their lofty clothing and blob-like figures, were from a distance as indiscriminate in recognition as ogres in ball gowns. Their seating was upon a great pedestal that towered several stories above the runway, and there was a smaller figure with them, who was squirming as if nervously trying to explain something. That particular squirm, Kit noted, belonged to Colonel Spigot, and if he was _already _squirming... Kit cracked a mean smile and adjusted himself straight in his seat, entertaining the thought that in but a few moments Spigot was going to be using his tusks to burrow himself a hiding spot in the snow.

As the formation began to move, in perfect unison with every bolted-together wing firmly intact, there arouse a clamor over the radio, something about an unidentified plane approaching the airfield... Kit turned the volume of his radio down so he could concentrate on his plan.

He had been in hundreds - several hundreds - of takeoffs already, but as the formation accelerated and soon lifted its nose and became airborne, the rough quaking of the landing gear rolling on the pavement suddenly transforming into smooth glide caught in the wind... his heart raced. A dull, gray sky had never looked so awesome. It was to be _his _sky.

The High Marshal, Mrs. High Marshal, and Colonel Spigot commenced a one-legged Flounder salute as the formation passed them upon takeoff. Kit gave Spigot a salute of his own (for not everything he had learned as an air pirate was wasted) and bid him farewell.

Not a moment after the formation was airborne, the airfield's radio chatter spiked once again, this time about an intruder airplane wreaking havoc on the parade floats. Calls for the air guard reinforcements filled the static-laden airwaves, though it was all background noise to Kit's ears. His sights were set in front of him, firmly, as was set the smirk on his face.

Then, out of nowhere and to his shock, a bonafide UFO suddenly shot across the front of the formation! It was being followed, as if pursued, by a squadron of heavy military planes, and, for the brief glimpse Kit caught of it before it whisked overhead, it looked like... a plane with a big fish head on its nose?

Kit considered where he was, and a flying fish head just as suddenly seemed not to be such a mystery.

"Thembrians," he sighed.

The Great Flounder formation continued its ascent for a few miles beyond the airfield, and just as it leveled out and was near the point of turning back for the next fly-by, Kit set his plan into action. He pulled open his plane's canopy and with wrench in hand crawled out on its left wing, the wing that had been bolted to his neighbor. In short order, he unscrewed the bolt and tossed the wrench aside, not without some devilish hope that it would find Spigot's head upon landing.

"It's _showtime_," he cried, and quickly returned to the cockpit. His plane was free! He was free... but no sooner did he push the canopy shut than did the Thunerkyak begin to wobble erratically. Kit grasped the stick with both hands, to no avail, and as the plane split apart from the formation.

Kit yelped and wrestled with the flight stick with all his might, but it would not budge... it was stuck! The world spinning before his eyes in tight circles made him dizzy, and he was seeing double when the plane outright took a nosedive and veered back to the airfield.

"This... isn't... supposed to happen!" he grunted, the nose of his plane posed straight at the bewildered expression behind High Marshal's tusks. Desperately, Kit shook the flight stick with his entire body, as if throttling it, and he shut his eyes... he didn't know which way was up, anyway.

Upon a strong tug, the flight stick suddenly clicked and the plane's nose kicked up, but only to serve in flinging the plane in a new direction. The High Marshal and company dove to the floor, the Thunderyak's propeller just grazing the tip of the Thembrian dictator's blue tail.

Kit began to breathe again when he realized he and his plane were indeed not yet a fiery stain on the tarmac. Somehow the plane had achieved some semblance of level flight, and it darted over the vast snow dunes at great speed.

"Oh, man, this _is _harder than it looks," he gasped. "Just keep 'er straight... keep her straight!" The flight stick, however, was still not cooperating. He could not turn, he could not pull up or push down. The Thembrian warplanes that were formerly chasing the flying fish head were quickly on either side of his wings, issuing threats over the radio.

No matter what he tried, the plane simply would not work. Then he realized, with a chilling dread clasping his heart, that the age of the pilots was probably not the _only _reason the Thunderyaks needed to be bolted together.

It was time to panic. "Oh no," he muttered. "I wish Baloo were here!"

He jolted in his seat as that same damned fish-headed UFO zipped passed him again, and the military planes abandoned the Thunderyak in chase of the fish... Kit blinked repeatedly and conceded to himself that, on top of everything else, he was likely going crazy.

More urgent clamor was raised on the radio, but Kit was watching the instruments on the console with complete tunnel vision. He entirely missed the sight of all those military planes crashing into each other and spiraling down to the ground, each of them caught in the giant fish head as if snared in a net.

Kit kept glancing back and forth, back and forth at the instruments before him, sweat rolling down over his nose as he inwardly begged the beast he was in not to stray into the ground. In all his panic, a yellow blur caught the corner of his right eye, and over the buzzing of his Thunderyak's engine there was another mechanical hum that sounded quite familiar.

It was the Sea Duck. Kit could not believe his eyes, and he paid special attention to the detail that the plane beared absolutely no resemblance to a fish. And there was Baloo, signaling him with waves of his hand.

"Baloo!" cried Kit.

The gray bear pointed forward, guesturing for Kit to look, and before them stood a great icy mountain, with a peak that stretched far into the sky and slopes as sheer as canyon cliffs.

"Oh crud," gulped Kit. "That's a lousy place for mountain!"

"Pick up the mic, Lil' Britches!" said Baloo's voice, from the Thunderyak's radio speaker. Kit turned up the volume and grabbed his plane's microphone. Before he could cry for help, Baloo began speaking again, softly but intently, "Now, just do what I tell ya, Kit. It's gonna be all right! Now, you ease that wheel back... ease it back..."

The stick would not budge, for all of Kit's strength. "I... I can't do it, Baloo!"

"Ease that wheel back!" ordered Baloo, in a much stronger tone. From his view, flying alongside the Thunderyak, he could see Kit struggling desperately, and the mountain drew ever nearer, second-by-second. Baloo may have swallowed the lump in his throat had he had the mere second to spare, and instead abandoned any method of gently coaching Kit out of this predicament. "Pull back _hard_, Kit!" he cried. "HARD!"

With his feet braced against the console, Kit cried out and _pulled _on the stick, and it suddenly snapped free! Kit was sucked to the back of his seat as the Thunderyak flipped upward, its nose straight to the covered sun, and skimmed the sloped of the mountain until it veered backwards into a into a half-loop, where Kit was finally able to turn the plane right-side up. The flight stick was then responsive and made much easier to control, though there was little good news in Kit's mind about how embarrassed he was.

"Ya did it!" shouted Baloo.

Kit took a moment to catch his breath (as Baloo did as well), and picked up his radio to reply. His stomach sank at the incoming 'I told you so' and the massive amount of crow he was about to eat. "No I didn't," he muttered. "_You _did."

"Aw, don't say _that_, Li'l Britches," said Baloo. "You're gonna be a _great _pilot."

Well, that wasn't so bad, thought Kit. "You really think so?" he asked.

"I _know _so," chuckled Baloo. "But do me a favor and land so I can fly ya home!"

"Roger, Papa Bear!"

As the two planes swung back toward the airfield, the rest of the Great Flounder formation has already landed and the rest of the holiday's festivities were grounded. Bobbo, who had been listening to the radio traffic the entire time, stared at the Sea Duck and Thunderyak with much muse filling his thoughts... thoughts about choice, freedom, consequences... and ice shaving. "So long, Kit," he said. "I'll always remember you as the kid who flew a plane... sort of."

Meanwhile, with the Sea Duck fast at his side, Kit glided the Thunkeryak toward a smaller airstrip on the outskirts of the airfield, the plane's nose wobbling more than he would have liked Baloo to have seen. Kit's hands had a grip on the flight stick of the likes that he would have had handing on to a rope for dear life.

"You got it, kid," said Baloo over the radio. "Now, just relax. Ease the throttle back..."

Together they turned to a heading that was flush with the airstrip, and steadily began a descent to the ground. In a moment, Kit's plane edged ahead of the Sea Duck.

"A little slower," warned Baloo. "Just get yer nose up a bit. Kit? You hear?"

Kit let out a deep breath. "I got it," he said, to himself. The gray airstrip was coming in fast, and his eyes were fixed on it as a hawk spying a field mouse. His plane was drifting left, he nudged the stick to the right, then the plane was drifting too far right. "Shoot! I... got it!" he said again, through his teeth.

"Whoa, Kit, pull up! We'll start over!" said Baloo.

"I'm okay!" replied Kit. He had just crossed the threshold of the strip, cut the throttle all the way back, and the sight of the runway disappeared from beneath his windshield... and as the landing gear was a mere yard from touching down... he missed the runway.

Gliding just too far to the left, the Thunderyak's landing gear hit a pile of snow freshly plowed from the strip, and the pint-sized plane tumbled in mid-air, tail over propeller, twice, then landed back on its wheels, skidding in circles at speed until the rubber of the landing gear popped flat, and the plane slowed to a halt in the middle of the far end of the airstrip.

Baloo shouted Kit's name several times, but there was no response. The glass of the Thunderyak's cockpit was cracked in an opaque web. Baloo made a very hasty landing next to the Thunderyak, and burst from the Sea Duck, running to Kit's aid.

"Kit! Are you all right? Lil' Britches, speak to me!"

The Thunderyak's canopy popped open, and Kit jumped out. "Baloo! Did you see that? I did it! I landed the plane by myself!"

No sooner than his feet touched the cold concrete did the Thunderyak begin to make heavy creaking noises, and in a beat, its landing gear gave out entirely, the plane buckled belly-first to the ground, the propeller fell off, followed by the wings, and suddenly the plane burst open from every seam, until there was nothing left of it but scrap metal and a seat!

With unhinged jaws, Kit and Baloo stared at the wreckage, utterly speechless.

At length, Kit turned back to Baloo, rubbing the back of his neck. "Heh, almost in one piece, too."

For all of him that was ready to scold the boy, Baloo smiled instead, and opened his arms wide. Kit leapt at him and was caught in a big embrace.

"But are you in once piece?" asked Baloo.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Kit.

"I sure did miss ya, kiddo."

"Me too. I'm glad you came. I needed you up there."

From the distance, Baloo saw soldiers beging to amass from the spectating crowd the other side of the airfield, and tanks began to show. "Uh-oh! You ready to get out of this giant snow-cone, or what?"

"You kidding? I thought I might stick around 'til winter, when it gets _really _cold!"

Kit hopped down from Baloo's shoulder and went back to the pile of rubbish that used to be the Thunderyak, and fished from the mess his airfoil and green sweater. After that, the soldiers and tanks approaching them, they jumped back into the Sea Duck and fled the airfield as hurriedly as two fugitives fleeing a prison.

* * *

><p>Soon after, the Sea Duck had departed from the gray Thembrian sky and was bathed in the warm afternoon sun. Basking in the bright light, Kit sank in his navigator's seat, as if melting. "Oh, man... does <em>that <em>feel good."

Baloo chuckled. "Yep, spending a week in an icebox might make ya think so." Then he was quiet for a moment, his brow twitching as he thought. "Look, Lil' Britches, I didn't mean to get ya so steamed before."

"I know," said Kit. "It wasn't your fault. It's _your _plane. It's just that..."

Baloo interrupted him: "Four more years is a long time to wait for somethin' ya want more than anything."

Kit sighed. "Yeah. I really thought I could do it."

"Aw, you'll be there before you know it, trust me," said Baloo. "An' ya cant go wrong, takin' pointers from the best!"

"Sure," smiled Kit, though halfheartedly. Baloo read in his eyes what he was thinking, for he had lived the same thoughts: to be twelve and ca-_razy_ about airplanes, as Louie had put it, begged more than just talk in the heart of a dreamer.

"Hey, I almost fergot!" said Baloo. "Somewhere in that mess back there, I got us a whole new case of sody-pop. Ya thirsty?"

"Yeah! I'll go get it," said Kit, and he was just about to hop out of his seat when Baloo stopped him.

"I got it, kid," he said. "Why don't ya hold her steady for a minute?"

"R-really?" said Kit, the corners of his mouth erupting into a wide grin. "Yeah, I can do that!"

Baloo got up and let Kit take the pilot's seat, and Kit eagerly assumed a vigilant posture while grabbing the flight yoke.

"Just steady," said Baloo. "Nice and easy, ya know?"

"What, no Baloo Corkscrews?" smirked Kit.

"Uh..."

"Kidding!" said Kit. "Steady, nice and easy. Got it!"

"All right, then," nodded Baloo, and he stepped into the Sea Duck's cargo hold.

"Hold it steady, no sweat..." said Kit. He checked all the gauges on the console, everything was in topnotch shape.

"Just steady..."

The purr of the Sea Duck's engines vibrated through the flight yoke and his hands, through his entire body and seemed to tickle his heart. He tugged the yoke back ever so slightly, and felt the plane gently, smoothly rise. The wind cutting over the plane's ailerons tingled on his fingers, and nowhere beyond the great, wide horizon was place he could not go.

He noted the needle on the speedometer, and that there was still plenty of room left for the needle to sway, much higher numbers for it to yet cross.

He wrapped his hand around the throttle.

"Maybe just a little faster..."

_-fin_


End file.
